Part III – A Is A
Chapter I – Atlantis
P701. Dagny opens her eyes and immediately sees a man’s face which carries with it “no mark of pain or fear or guilt…pride…serene determination…a ruthless innocence which would not seek forgiveness or grant it…intense perceptiveness…superlative value to himself and the world…pure consciousness.” The face is the portrait of a producer and Dagny knows that this is the way things should have always been. She is in a subconscious state understands what is and is not important in life
3. The first words from her mouth are, “We never had to take any of it seriously, did we.” The man responds, “No, we never had to.” The man is John Galt. It was Galt who was piloting the plane that she was following. His plane landed at a strip in another part of the valley. Dagny’s plane landed on a grassy field.
(703) Galt tries to lift her, but Dagny doesn’t want to be helped. However, she cannot walk and allows herself to “surrender.” He tells her about the “screen of rays” which has been set up to visually and magnetically stop visitors. The magnetics of the screen had caused her motor to die as she was spiralling into the valley. As he carries her down a trail into the valley, they look at each other and hold long, meaningful glances. They hear Halley’s Fifth Concerto and Dagny discovers tha
t Halley lives in the valley. Somehow, Galt knows that Halley is all that Dagny listens to when she is home alone. She sees a cluster of houses in the valley, an industrial district off in the distance and then her eye is caught by a three-foot-high gold dollar sign. The sign was given by Francisco to the owner of the valley, Midas Mulligan. The dollar sign has been adopted by all the people in the valley as their “particular emblem.” Dagny is greeted by Hugh Akston and Midas Mulligan, who are suprised to see her. Mulligan tells her, “What a stunt to pull – for a person who’d have been admitted here so eagerly, if she’d chosen to come through the front door!” Dagny asks where the front door is and is told that it is in her mind. Akston also tells her that Galt is the inventor of the motor.
(707) Mulligan asks Galt what they are going to do with Dagny, who is the first scab of their strik
e. Dagny is a scab in reverse, continuing to work while the rest of the producers, the men of the mind, are on strike. Galt takes responsibility for Dagny and also thanks Dagny for Quentin Daniels, who he says is a competent “understudy.” Mulligan tells Dagny that there’s only one other person who would be as welcome in the valley as Dagny, and that is Hank Rearden.
(708) Dagny is put into Mulligan’s car and driven around the valley. The valley is beautiful, orderly and sunny. Mention is made of Akston being the father figure to Galt, and that Stadler, who once bore the same role, betrayed Galt. Dagny sees and greets Ellis Wyatt, who is excited thinking that she has joined, but then discovers the truth of how she came with some regret. Galt watches Dagny to gauge her reaction to the things she is seeing in the valley, especially the people who were once part of the other world. Dagny thinks that Galt is showing her all this to convince her to join them, but he tells h
er that it’s her decision. One of the theme’s of the valley is that people decide for themselves, see things for themselves, think for themselves.
(709) They enter Galt’s house, which is simple but organized and efficient. They discuss the John Galt Line. Dagny says that he was a fitting mascot, but then she realizes that she “named it after an enemy.” She discovers that the stories about Twentieth Century were true. She also discovers that Galt has been watching her for years. A Dr. Hendricks arrives at Galt’s house to treat Dagny for her light cuts and bruises. Hendricks is another person who vanished many years earlier. Rand’s describes Hendricks, like every other person in the valley, acting with efficiency, precision, intelligence and competency. Dagny wants to receive a bill for his services, but discovers that gold is the currency of the valley. Galt makes it clear to Dagny that he has been th
inking about her often. He is also proud to tell her that he got to Daniels ahead of her in order to beat her.
(712) Galt cooks breakfast for Dagny with an “easy, relaxed skill…with the rapid precision of an engineer pulling the levers of a control board.” Dagny thinks Galt is unworthy of spending his time on such menial tasks as making breakfast. Galt tells her the names of several others in the valley: Hammond (P339), Sanders, Narragansett (P313). Everyone in the valley has a job doing something to support themselves while in the valley, as well as the job of continuing to exercise their brain in their chosen work from the other world. Galt’s job in the valley is handy man. He keeps everything going, especially the power system, which is being run by his motor. Galt tells Dagny that he’ll show her everything in valley, except the motor.
{The motor is a symbol of man’s moral code. The proper moral code is incredibly powerful and liberating. Th
e lives of the people in the valley would not be possible if they did not all possess the proper moral code.}
(714) Dagny and Galt are making plans to go out for the day in a car that Galt has rented from Mulligan for a quarter a day. In the valley they don’t believe in ‘giving’ in the charitable sense. Everyone comes to the valley for a one month “vacation” once a year. Says Galt, “We come here because we want to rest. But we have certain customs, which we all observe, because they pertain to the things we need to rest from. So I’ll warn you now there is one word which is forbidden in the valley: the word ‘give.’ ” They are going to Mulligan’s for dinner that evening. Quentin Daniels arrives at Galt’s house and tells Dagny that he honestly forgot his promise to wait for her because he was so mesmerized by Galt. Daniels had been working hard on solving the riddle of the motor the day Galt came to him. Galt walked into Daniels’ lab and Daniels a
sked Galt to wait. While Daniels was writing formulas on the chalk board, Galt approached and wrote down the clinching forumla to the riddle of the motor. Galt then introduced himself as the inventor of the motor. Daniels jumped at the chance to work with such a mind. Daniels’ job in the valley is janitor. All the people of the valley seem to be happy about their petty jobs. Daniels is also now extremely excited about life and, for that reason, he is excited about making a lot of money, where so recently, in the other world, he was downcast and almost apathetic about money.
(716) As they leave for the day, Dagny is excited: “She felt suddenly as if nothing existed beyond that circle [of the valley], and she wondered at the joyous, proud comfort to be found in a sense of the finite, in the knowledge that the field of one’s concern lay within the realm of one’s sight.” They drop Daniels off at Mulligan’s house, which is the biggest in the valley. Their first stop is at the farm of Dwi
ght Sanders, who used to manufacture airplanes, and now is “the hog farmer and the airfield attendant.” Looking at her banged up plane, Dagny remarks that “…Nobody can fix it.” Sanders replies, “I can.” Dagny thinks to herself, “These were the words and the tone of confidence that she had not heard for years, this was the manner she had given up expecting…” Dagny says that she wants to pay for the repairs on her plane. She is respectfully laughed at by Galt, who says that in the valley she has no money. Sanders tells Dagny that he will charge her two hundred dollars in gold for fixing the plane, whenever she gets the currency.
(718) Galt and Dagny go on to visit another person in the valley, Dick McNamara, “who had once been her best contractor.” He is now doing utility construction in the valley and has three ex-professors working for him. These professors used to teach things like, “…that you can’t consume mo
re than you have produced…that the inhabitants of slums were not the men who made this country…that men are capable of thinking…” Dagny hints that she believes it is inefficient that such learned men are working in such non-productive industries. McNamara points out that while Taggart Transcontinental has declined in the past three years, the utility lines in the valley have grown. So he wonders who is more productive.
(719) Galt is unabashedly proud of the fact that he has taken so many men away from Dagny. Galt names things as they are. He feels no guilt for his actions. “…In proud certainty of being right, he had made a boast of that which she had intended as an accusation.” Next they see a young and attractive woman who enthusiastically greets Galt. Dagny feels some jealousy. Like others in the valley, this woman has two lives: the one in the valley, where she is a fisherwoman, and the one from
before, where she is a writer.
(720) They move on to a higher elevation section where Ellis Wyatt has started a new branch of Wyatt Oil. He is collecting oil from shale using a new and complex process which had previously been “considered impossible.” Wyatt has two men working for him, one of whom was “the young brakeman of the Comet,” the same one who had whistled Halley’s Fifth Concerto while passing Dagny on the train (P12). The brakeman is both Wyatt’s “best grease-monkey” and “Halley’s best pupil.” Dagny again demeans the work of those in the valley, saying, “I know, this is the place where one employs nothing but aristocrats for the lousiest kinds of jobs.” Wyatt responds, “They’re all aristocrats, that’s true…because they know that there’s no such thing as a lousy job – only lousy men who don’t care to do it.” {Underlining TMP.} In the valley, the attitude of the mind is productive, grateful and joyous, despite the fact that not everyone was an
owner before.
(721) Dagny is saddened to know the small size of Wyatt’s output, but Wyatt is proud of his production because it is his. He speaks glowingly of the power and pride which follows an individual’s accomplishment. To earn money is to improve; it means you are getting better. “What’s wealth but the means of expanding one’s life? There’s two ways one can do it: either by producing more or by producing it faster. And that’s what I’m doing: I’m manufacturing time.” He grows by saving time and making things more efficient. He trades his achievements with others, giving him both money and pride, because he knows that he has added value, that he is worth something. This is the kernel of capitalism.
(722) Wyatt says that when he makes things more efficient, he passes on some of the savings to those in the valley with whom he trades. Yes, his market is limited to the valley, but at least he is not dealing with the looters. “I deal with life-givers, not with the cannibals…Here, w
e trade achievements, not failures – values, not needs. We’re free of one another, yet we all grow together…What greater wealth is there than to own your own life and to spend it on growing? Every living thing must grow. It can’t stand still. It must grow or perish.”
(723) Galt and Dagny visit Ted Nielson, previously an automaker (P319, 379, 517) and now a lumberjack. They visit Roger Marsh, previously an electrical applicance businessman (P517) and now a cabbage tycoon. Some men have gone into their former profession because there is a need for those services in the valley. Andrew Stockton has already started a foundry and run a competitor in the valley out of business. Now that competitor works for him. In the valley, ruthless competition is desired, because someone who is less able does not mind working for someone who is more able than they. People go to work wherever their best and highest use is. Stockton knows that if, or when, Rearden comes to the valley, he could be put out of
business. It doesn’t scare Stockton because he knows that he would feel great about working for Rearden. Dagny sees Ken Dannager working for Stockton in the foundry and she thinks this is preposterous, yet Dannager is proud and sees it as a beginning. She asks Stockton why he’s hired a man who could become a competitor and Stockton tells her that ability is never a threat to someone else in the valley. They embrace each other’s abilities, much in the same way that the top superstars in many sports hold each other in high regard. Says Stockton, “Any man who’s afraid of hiring the best ability he can find, is a cheat who’s in a business where he doesn’t belong. To me – the foulest man on earth, more contemptible than a criminal, is the employer who reject men for being too good.” Dagny knows that this logic is right, but, because she has lived in the other world so long, she has “given up expecting reason.” Leaving Dannager and the foundry, Dagny finds out that it was Galt who was with Dannager while Da
gny was kept waiting in the anteroom (P440).
(726) Continuing their drive through the valley, they see a woman at a market, both described in efficient, lively and favorable manner. {Interestingly, all but one of the women in valley are unnamed. Additionally, there are very few children in the valley. In the downtown area, Rand describes how “…There were few passers-by, some men, fewer women…”
} They drive past Kay Ludlow, a movie star who had vanished five years earlier; they drive past the Mulligan Bank and the Mulligan Mint, which has been in operation for two years. The valley’s currency is gold. Galt says, “We don’t accept any other currency in this valley. We accept nothing but objective values.” {The philosophical movement Rand started is called objectivism. Rand believed that things should be black and white, and, more importantly, that certain things are right and others wrong. For the world to be this way requires that people have an objective and consistent view of the world.}
(728) All the houses in the valley are unique and “…the only quality they had in common was
the stamp of a mind grasping a problem and solving it.” {This is an example of an an objective value: The rational capability of the mind is right and good.} They pass by Francisco’s home, “the humblest home of the valley.” Galt lets Dagny have a moment to look at the house and think about Francisco. Although Galt has not been told about Dagny and Francisco’s relationship, he has figured it out. He says to Dagny, not boasting, “That was the first man I took away from you.”
(730) They drive to the powerhouse, “an unobtrusive little structure” where the motor Galt invented is used to give power to the valley. Dagny believes that “an emotion [is] a sum totaled by an adding machine of the mind.” Looking upon the powerhouse, Dagny feels nothing but
one emotion: admiration. To Dagny the motor means the power to achieve and the pride that comes with that power. “…If, like a weighted diver sinking in an ocean of mediocrity,…she had held, as her life line and oxygen tube, the thought of a superlative achievement of the human mind…then here it was before her, reached and done, the power of an incomparable mind given shape.” The motor represents trememdous savings. Dagny knows that physical objects exist and are real; however, there is no meaning in the physical objects themselves. Instead, the physical objects have meaning in the context of a man’s life. “…She knew that there was no meaning in motors or factories or trains, that their only meaning was in man’s enjoyment of his life, which they served – and that her swelling admiration at the sight of an achievement was for the man from whom it came, for the power and radiant vision within him which had seen the earth as a place of enjoyment and had known that the work of achieving one’s happine
ss was the purpose, the sanction and the meaning of life.”
(731) Above the door to the powerhouse is a sign with the following words: “I swear by my life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.” This is the oath that has been taken by every person in the valley, except Dagny. The oath helps Dagny undestand why she realized, when she arrived in the valley (P701), that she didn’t need to take any of the looter drivel seriously. When people live their
/ lives for their own sake, then the opinions and behaviors of others mean virtually nothing. Standing in front of the powerhouse together, Dagny knows that the “proper form of worship to be offered on an altar of that kind” is sex, which, if it is with the right person, is the ultimate exultation of life. Dagny revels in sensing that Galt feels the same thing and would want to have her right here and now.
(732) She tries to open the door, but can not. He says that only the proper thought will open the door. Moreover, if the door is forced open, the
machinery inside will self-destruct. Galt then slowly says the oath and Dagny knows that she is seeing “a man’s naked soul.” The door opens and he quickly pulls it shut. Galt takes her back to his house. She goes into her room, completely exhausted and able to feel only the emotion of admiration. She quickly falls asleep.
P733. Dagny awakes from her nap and goes to stand in a doorway, looking at Galt. She sees herself and knows that Galt is seeing her as she would be in her office. They silently look at each other with heavy meaning. Dagny and Galt go to dinner at Mulligan’s House with Wyatt, Dannager, Akston, Hendricks, Daniels, Halley and Narragansett. Dagny is introduced to the group by Mulligan: “Gentlemen – Taggart Transcontinental.” Among this group, one’s work is all-important. Dagny feels comfortable because “these were the men whose standards of value and honor were the same as her own, the men who recognized
the glory of that title [Taggart Transcontental] as she recognized it, knowing with a sudden stab of wistfulness how much she had longed for that recognition through all her years.” They all acknowledge that they want Dagny to join them in the valley, but they also tell her that she must decide on her own first. Dagny has not yet decided to make the valley her home. She tells the group that seeing them is like going to heaven and meeting all the great people of the past. Akston asks her why anyone should have to wait until they die in order to be a part of “the dream of…greatness.”
(736) They have their dinner sitting around a living room area in armchairs. The room is filled with life, intelligence and greatness. The room is alive with “electric light glittering in the wine glasses…an air of luxury…expert simplicy…no superfluous objects…wealth of selection, not accumulation.” Akston acts as if he is Galt’s father, at one point brushing a hair from Galt’s face. Each of the
men tell Dagny their story of leaving the other world and how they have not been withering away in their time since. They are continuing to stretch their minds, but none of what they learn will be shared with the outside world. Mulligan says he sees his bank like a blood bank, pumping money instead of blood into the economy instead of humans. He became “fed up with the job of running a slaughter house, where one drains blood out of healthy living beings and pumps it into gutless half-corpses.”
(737) Akston tells Dagny that none of them have “given up…It is the world that has…All work is an act of philosophy. And when men will learn to consider productive work – and that which is its source ["man's reasoning mind"] – as the standard of their moral values, they will reach that state of perfection which is the birthright they lost.”
(738) Dagny asks what they are all doing and Galt replies that they are on strike. Everyone who has struck in the past has demanded something of
others. This strike carries no demands and is being led by “the men who have carried the world on their shoulders.” Only by the “grace” of the men of the mind were others able to experience being human. “[The productive man] was the man of extravagant energy – and reckless generosity – who knew that stagnation is not man’s fate, that impotence is not his nature, that the ingenuity of his mind is his noblest and most joyous power.” The men of the mind let others make them feel guilty for their abilities. “It was always the animal’s attributes, not man’s, that humanity worshipped: …instinct and…force…The mystics…ruled by means of the claim that their dark emotions were superior to reason…The kings…ruled by means of claws and muscles…Whenever a man den
ounces the mind, it is because his goals are of a nature the mind would not permit him to confess…destruction is the price of any contradiction. It is the victim who made injustice possible…The despoiling of ability has been the purpose of every creed that preached self-sacrifice.” People today, Galts says, are asked to worship “the human Incompetent…and all men are to be rewarded according to how close they approach it.”
{In many major cities, their is a close outward resemblence between bums and people who are trying to be fashionable. These “fashionable” people are trying to look slovenly because it is perceived as stylish. Another example of how people reaching for that which is instinctual and based in force begins in grade school.
It has been and continues to be perceived by most students of American schools as stylish to be cool and athletic while it is “square” to have superior powers of the mind. My hypothesis is that the industrialized countries are able to afford the luxury of not promoting the powers of reason which made them wealthy in the first place.}
(740) Because of the guilt and coercion, the producers have allowed themselves to work on behalf of the looters. “They are counting on you to go on, to work to the limit of the inhuman and to feed them while you last…” Over time, there will be more looters and less producers. “This does not worry the looters of the moment. Their plan…is only that the loot shall last their lifetime.” Bu
t Galt says that he and his group are “on strike against martyrdom – and against the moral code that demands it. We are on strike against those who believe that one man must exist for the sake of another.” The producers on strike will not force their moral code on others, but they will show what happens when the sanction of the victim is removed. The sanction of the victim means “the victim’s acceptance of punishment for breaking a code impossible to practice.” That impossible code is that humans are fundamentally evil and selfish, that it is more noble to sacrifice yourself for others or give to those around you, so that they will withdraw their condemnation of you for being so selfish. The producers, by striking, will give the looters everything they want, including the property of the world. Then the producers will withdraw, feeling nothing, for those left behind.
(741) Each of the men proceed to explain why they joined the strike. Akston could not believe that other philosophers would grant admiss
ion into their profession to individuals whose premise was the denial of reason. “When thinkers accept those who deny the existence of thinking, as fellow thinkers of a different school of thought – it is they who achieve the destruction of the mind.” {It is not suprising to me now that I personally accepted the ideas of several of my college professors, especially the idea that it is more noble to give to others than to lead a productive life for your self. The philosophy of sacrifice is and was dominant
on American campuses.}
(742) Mulligan quit because of the Hunsacker case (P317), in which, as a banker, he was ordered to give money to the needy, only because they were needy. “I had made my fortune by being able to spot a certain kind of man. The kind who never asked you for faith, hope and charity, but offered you facts, proof and profit.” He saw Hank Rearden, whom he had financed, being destroyed by the whining Hunsacker. This horrific vision caused him to quit. Narragansett quit because the law is supposed to be based upon objective rules, not need.
(743) Halley quit because of his audience’s views of his success. Haley had struggled without praise for a long time. When success finally came, his audience didn’t thank him. Instead, they assumed it was his duty to
suffer so that they could enjoy his work. The audience tried to gain their self-esteem by demanding that Halley admit that they, the audience, were the goal of his music.
(744) The constant theme in the reasons why these men quit is their belief that an individual should get what they earn. If an individual uses force or guilt so that they receive more, then that person is a looter. If an individual knowingly takes less than they have earned, then that person is willingly a victim. Dr. Hendricks quit being a doctor because medicine was put under state control. The function of doctors was to serve, almost like slaves. All of the concern was placed upon the patient’s needs. Doctors were not receiving
what they had earned.
(745) Dagny asks Galt why he quit, to which he responds, “My refusal to be born with any original sin…I have never felt guilty of my ability. I have never felt guilty of my mind. I have never felt guilty of being a man. I accepted no unearned guilt, and thus was free to earn and to know my own value. Ever since I can remember, I had felt that I would kill the man who’d claim that I exist for the sake of his need – and I had known that this was the highest moral feeling. That night, at the Twentieth Century Meeting, when I heard an unspeakable evil being spoken in a tone of moral righteousness, I saw the root of the world’s tragedy, the key to it and the solution. I saw what had to be done. I went out to do it.” He abandoned the motor because he knew for whose service it was going to be put to use. Galt says that to be indifferent to the world which should be the producers’ is the toughest thing that each of the str
ikers has had to accept. Twelve years earlier, after beginning the strike, Galt made it his job to watch the men of ability and bring them into his team. What he gave them was pride in themselves and their work, as well as a moral sanction. “I gave them the pride they did not know they had…I gave them that priceless possession which they had missed, had longed for, yet had not known they needed: a moral sanction.”
(746) Two people joined Galt almost immediately, and then he was joined by Akston, Hastings, Halley and Mulligan. It was Mulligan who had bought the property of the valley many years earlier and used it to establish the valley. When each person joined, they took the oath and agreed to not share their profession with the rest of the world, but they continued with it as much as they could in their spare time. And they began meeting for one month a year in the valley “…to rest, to live in a rational world, to bring our real work out of hiding, to trade our achievemen
ts – here, where achievements meant payment, not expropriation.”
(747) Mulligan tells Dagny that the valley is now almost able to support itself. They are not a country, but a voluntary group, held together by “every man’s self-interest.” Narragansett is their recourse mechanism for disputes, but he has not yet been needed. “You’d be suprised how easy it is – when both parties hold as their moral absolute that neither exists for the sake of the other and that reason is their only means of trade.” Akston says that all those people not in the valley who are deserting and giving up carry the same rationality as those in the valley.
(748) Galt says that in the beginning they weren’t sure how long the strike would take, whether they would see the new world in their lifetime or in the next generation. He says that they will return “…When the code of the looters has collapsed.” Hearing everything, Dagny listens and knows that “…this room, not the giant concourse in New York -
this was her goal.” Galt tells her that she can commit whenever she is ready, although one of the others had learned the “secret” of the valley before they made their commitment.
(749) Dagny and Galt share a moment of intimacy when Galt acknolwedges that it will be more difficult for Dagny to make her decision after having seen the valley and having met Galt. Galt says that he calls the valley Mulligan’s Valley, but the others call it Galt’s Gulch.
(750) Dagny and Galt drive home. They share another intimate moment as he carries her (she’s still injured from the plane crash) into his house, past his bedroom and into the guest bedroom. He asks her if she still wants to shoot him. She says no, but he explains to her that if she does not join them, then she will become an enemy to him. “You are my only danger. You are the only person who could deliver me to my enemies.” Dagny’s room is the same room that all the others stayed in during their first night in the valley, which was the toughest time for
all of them. Galt helped each of them through that difficult first night and, for that reason, the room is referred to by the others as “the torture chamber.”
Chapter II – The Utopia Of Greed
P752. Dagny wakes in Galts home. Fixing breakfast for Galt, Dagny finds a joy similar to how she used to feel when she danced or when she worked in her first job with the railroad at the Rockdale station (P50). As they are about to have breakfast, a young blond-haired man excitedly rushes into the house looking for John. He knows who Dagny is and can’t believe that Dagny has arrived and, furthermore, that she is a scab. Dagny wonders what sort of profession this man, who looks like pure perfection, has on the outside world. The man greets Galt, showing an almost military respect. Galt, relieved to see that this man is alive, introduces Dagny to Ragnar Danneskjöld.
(755) Galt invite
s Ragnar to stay for breakfast and Dagny takes great pleasure in serving breakfast to the two men and then joining them. Ragnar wonders where Francisco is, since the three of them have had breakfast every June 1st for the past 12 years. Ragnar reports to John on his past year: he’s had no lives lost and he’s taken lots of looter loot. Galt tells Ragnar that he has won over all the men he had wanted. Ragnar, knowing that Hank Rearden would be one of Galt’s greatest additions, wants to tell Galt that about his night encounter with Rearden and the two policemen (P571). Galt does not want hear about it and sternly says “No!” Both Dagny and Ragnar are curious as to Galt’s reaction. {Galt knows from his conversations with Eddie about Dagny’s relationship with Rearden and he doesn’t want to get Dagny thinking about Rearden.} Ragnar explains how he has brought a large amount of gold by plane into the valley. He has even accumulated a sizeable amount of wealth for Dagny. While the others don’
t approve of his method, they still allow him to be a part of their group. Ragnar says that Galt “…is depriving them of reason, I’m depriving them of wealth.” He has his own unique and detailed method of re-collecting the income taxes of the producers. Dagny’s account would have been larger, if not for the fact that Taggart Transcontinental has beneffited from subsidies and other looter policies. Ragnar explains to Dagny that he was married four years ago to the actress Kay Ludlow. Dagny wonders how she tole
‘rates him being away and possibly being killed. Ragnar tells her, “She can live through it, Miss Taggart, because we do not hold the belief that this earth is a realm of misery where man is doomed to destruction.”
(759) Dagny tells him that she won’t take the money. Galt tells her that the money will then simply lie in a bank account, although some of it will be used to pay for her room and board. Because she was uninvited, Galt forces her to stay for the entire month. He wants to charge her fifty cents a day to stay at his house, but she
says that she wants to pay her own way being his maid. Galt laughs because it’s a victory to see that Dagny lives by a moral code like his own. Galt asks her if this is what she really wants to do and she acknowledges, secretly knowing that being his personal slave is what she wants more than anything. He hires her and gives her an advance on her wages.
P761. Owen Kellogg arrives on Dagny’s third day. He is shocked to see her because he, and the rest of the other world, had thought that she was dead. Dagny was supposed to be in Winston, Colorado by noon of the day after she took off from Afton (P690). Everyone in the other world, especially the remaining producers, were profoundly affected by the news of her presumed death. Kellogg updates Dagny on other
- news: he doesn’t know if the train reached San Francisco; he got a job for Jeff Allen when the train reached a station; he spoke with and informed Hank Rearden about what had happened. {Kellogg intuits that Dagny and Hank were involved, but by not placing any judgement on Dagny, he shows that he is a producer; he offers no negative or destructive comments.}
(763) Thinking about Rearden, who continues to fight the battle, Dagny feels a “double treason.” She is not a part of the people of the valley and she is no longer fighting with Rearden. This feeling goes away when she has dinner with Galt later that night. She tells him, “dryly, efficiently” how she mended some of his shirts. {When Rand writes, the common becomes romanticized. Their dinner together is portrayed as elegant and efficient.}
Dagny asks Galt if she could send a message to someone outside the valley. He says no, although he offers her the option of asking for a special exception. Dagny doesn’t take the offer. In this way she is submitting and accepting her confinement in the valley.
(764) The next morning, Dagny is doing chores in her room when she hears Francisco arriving at the front door of Galt’s house. Francisco is met by Galt and is clearly distressed. He says that he can not stay in the valley for some reason. Galt tells him that before he leaves he should meet a scab who arrived recently. Galts leads Francisco to Dagny’s room and then leaves the two alone. Francisco, who had been out looking for Dagny, shudders with relief at knowing t
hat Dagny is alive. Dagny, in turn, lovingly comforts Francisco. She sees that there is no pain in his eyes. He tells her that he loves her and that it’s all right if she doesn’t love him. He is simply glad that she is in the valley and alive. He tells her things he has been waiting over twelve years to tell her: how he knew that he loved her the same night that he decided to join Galt (P104); how he became fed up with “…the tax-collecting vermin…the government regulations…the labor unions who won every claim against me…” He says to her, “I saw that any man’s desire for money he could not earn was regarded as a righteous wish, but if he earned it, it was damned as greed…” He saw that the world was being run by those who said that humans exist for the sake of others, not themselves. He explains that Galt convinced him to join, but did not compel him. Francisco says that he has been fighting for Dagny, that he didn’t want to let the l
{ooters of the world ruin her. {I find this somewhat curious because it sounds like self-sacrifice, something in which the producers do not believe.}
(767) Francisco knew that sooner or later Dagny would join their group. He also knew what a huge chance he took in leaving Dagny twelve years earlier and he is even able to say that he is glad it was Rearden with whom she became involved. Dagny thinks to herself that Francisco is off the mark because the man she really loves is Galt…and she doesn’t know if he reciprocates. Francisco knows that he and Dagny won’t make love, but the fact that they hold each other in such high regard is what really counts. “Dagny, every form of happiness is one, every desire is driven by the same motor – by our love for a single value, for the highest potentiality of our own existence – and every achievement is an expression of it.” He wants t
o sleep with her, but having her admiration and her love is enough. They kiss and come out of the room, Francisco looking considerably relieved to Galt. Francisco tells Galt that he won’t have to leave after all because he had been looking for Dagny. Francisco asks Galt if they can notify Rearden that Dagny is all right. Galt responds, “Pity, Francisco?” Pity is not condoned in the valley. Rearden is not notified.
P769. Dagny is at Francisco’s house, which is simple and efficient and very suited to its owner. “The place had the brightness, not of a home, but of a fresh wooden scaffolding erected to shelter the birth of a skyscraper.” Francisco tells Dagny that he has a mine in the valley which he bought eight years earlier. Dagny can see that he is ready “…to conquer the world…” Francisco explains how the re-birth of his company has to start in the United States. He says, “This country was the only country in history born, not of chance and blind tribal warfare, but as a rational pro
duct of man’s mind. This country was built on the supremacy of reason – and, for one magnificent century, it redeemed the world.” He tells Dagny how his ancestor, Sebastián d’Anconia, made only one error and that was accepting the looter code “that the property he had earned by right, was to be his, not by right, but by permission.” Francisco says that the world must know and understand property rights. He says that he will fulfill his ambition, of doubling his father’s output of copper, if he mines only a single pound of copper, “…because that one pound will be mine by right and will be used to maintain a world that knows it!”
(772) He shows her a new smelter design and they share an intimate moment together. Dagny can see how love is a “celebration o
f one’s life” and how “…what she had felt for Francisco had always been a celebration of her future…” At the same time, she knows that Galt is her man because he is the representation of what has motivated her throughout her life. Nevertheless, Dagny is torn. She has always rejected the idea that man is “doomed ever to aspire, but not to achieve.” She wants Galt and she wants her life in the other world. She thinks that nothing could make her leave Galt, but she also thinks that her worth is in the railroad and she wonders what worth she would have without it.
(772) She goes back to Galt’s house and Galt does not ask her about her time with Francisco. After dinner, he leaves, as he has done every other evening, and is gone until midnight
,. Dagny wonders whether Galt has another woman or, even worse, whether he is sacrificing himself so that she can be with Rearden. One night she asks him where he has been going and she finds that he has been lecturing some of the others in the valley on physics and his latest discoveries. Dagny is relieved. He also tells her that he has a job and a laboratory somewhere in the outside world, although he can not disclose the location.
(775) He leaves one night and she feels “a secret violence” and the longing for intimacy with him. She thinks abo
ut how she takes pleasure in seeing him eat the food she has prepared because “…she had provided him with a sensual enjoyment, that one form of his body’s satisfaction had come from her.” The common view of the other world is that a woman cooking for a man is “a sickening drudgery” instead of giving a man satisfaction. Likewise, the common looter view is that sex is “a physical indulgence” instead of a celebration of that which you hold dear. Dagny fights herself to not think of how much she wants Galt. “When nothing seems worth the effort – said some stern voice in her mind – it’s a screen to hide a wish that’s worth too much; what do you want?” She answers to herself, “I want him back!” She knows that Galt can be hers, but she must first give her full conviction to his co
de and his program. She falls asleep and awakens to see him looking at her. He quietly says to her, “You look as if you would awaken in a world where you had nothing to hide or to fear…But here, it’s true.” He says that she looks like she before she fell asleep once in her office. She asks how he knew what she looked like falling sleep, but he says he can’t tell her. Dagny is self-concious of the fact that she looks like “his servant girl” and, moreover, she is proud that she knows that he wants her.
(777) Galt wants to leave her this night as he has done before, with a simple good-night, but he cannot. “She knew only that he who had never started or lost a battle against himself, now had no power to leave this room.” She revels in the power of knowing that s
he is keeping him, but then she senses his physical power and attraction. She loses her feeling of power and instead wilts and trembles. Galt tells her that he has seen her many times in the other world and has always known that she is his “…worst enemy but one.” The other enemy is Dr. Stadler. Francisco was the person who had first told Galt about Dagny, who would be the toughest person to bring into the group. Galt tells the story of how he saw her for the first time, ten years earlier, on a railroad platform at the Taggart Terminal. She looked part “Grecian goddess” and part “imperious…American woman.” At first Galt didn’t think that Dagny belonged with the griminess of the railroad, but then he realized that she was the embodiment “of energy and
of its reward, together, a look of competence and luxury combined.” He tells Dagny that his vision of her caused him to realize that “abandoning my motor was not the hardest price I would have to pay for this strike.” Dagny recalls that the reason she had to come to the Terminal that evening was because a manager had quit unexpectedly and their had been a traffic error. Galt tells her that it was he who caused that manager to quit.
Dagny thinks of her earlier vow of shooting the destroyer when she met him. Knowing that Galt is the destroyer, she tells herself that she still would have shot him, but she would have had sex with him first. She imagines sex with Galt and can see that that is what she is visualizing. Galt tells her that he has taken all the good men from her and that if she goes back to the other world, she’ll surely see Taggart Transcontinental destroyed. “I have pulle
d every girder from under Taggart Transcontinental and, if you choose to go back, I will see it collapse upon your head.” She asks and he acknowledges that he could physically hold her in the valley, but he wants her to decide on her own if she will join them.
(780) He leaves to go to bed. She wants him badly, not caring for the moment about the railroad or anything else. She feels a violent rage to make love to him. She thinks that she’s fighting an uncontrollable, animal urge, but the voice of reason inside her tells her that she wouldn’t feel so strongly for him if not for the person that he is. Finally, just before she falls asleep, she hears “the sound of a step and the click of a cigarette lighter” and she knows that he has been fighting the same urges as she.
P781. Dagny is with Richard Halley in his studio. She is in total admiration of his work. She thinks of him composing beauty
over the past few years while she had to listen to “the screeches of a modern symphony.” He tells her that he really is a businessman, more than the normal artist of the day, and he expects to paid like a businessman. He strives for an appreciation and intellectual understanding on the part of his audience equal to his own. “This is the payment I demand. Not many can afford it.” He wants to be admired intellectually, not emotionally. “…My performance is a mutual trade to mutual profit.” Whether artist or businessman, “…all work is an act of creating and comes from the same source…the capacity to see, to connect and to make what had been seen, connect and made before.” Today, when the looters of the other world talk about artists, they say “…he’s not restrained by such crude concepts as ‘being’ or ‘meaning,’ he’s the vehicle of higher mysteries, he doesn’t know how he created his work or why, it just came out of him spontaneously, like vomit out of a drunkard…” Halley knows what it takes
to be a successful artist, “…what discipline, what effort, what tension of mind, what unrelenting strain upon one’s power of clarity are needed to produce a work of art…” Artists, just like businessmen, cannot accomplish based upon their feelings. “…The operator of a coal mine…knows that it’s not feeling that keep the coal carts moving…” Feelings do exist, but artists and others must know why they have feelings in order to clear the way to achievement of any kind. Businessmen and artists are not enemies; instead, Halley sees that a businessman is a representative “…of man’s highest creative spirit…”
(784) Dagny leaves Halley and, walking through the streets, she can see how the “…businesses here had the purposeful selectiveness of art…” Lat
er, she sees a play in which Kay Ludlow is the featured actor. The play is captivating, exhilarating, intelligently crafted and makes Dagny feel that life is worth living. After the play, Ludlow tells her that she quit the other world because her talent was being used to glorify “depravity” and “mediocrity.”
(785) One day, Dagny meets a woman who owns the bakery and her two sons. Families and relatives are not allowed into the valley unless all members take the oath. These particular kids are not like the kids of the other world who had “…a look of fear, half-secretive, half-sneering, the look of a child’s defense against an adult…” The two sons in the valley “…had an innocently natural, non-boastful sense of their own value and as innocent a trust in any stran
ger’s ability to recognize it, they had the eager curiosity that would venture anywhere with the certainty that life held nothing unworthy of or closed to discovery…” The mother tells Dagny that the kids represent her career, “motherhood,” which is “…the profession I’ve chosen to practice…” In the valley, children are not confronted with the irrational.
(785) That night, Dagny has dinner at Akston’s home with Galt, Francisco, Ragnar and Kay. Akston says that his pupils are just “normal men,” not “superhuma
n creatures.” Akston is eager to tell Dagny more about his students and their history. Galt “…was the son of a gas-station mechanic at some forsaken crossroads in Ohio, and he had left home at the age of twelve to make his own way.” Akston saw the three of them for the first time in a class when Galt asked an extremely intelligent question. Akston asked Galt back to his office and the other two came along. Akston spent the rest of his day speaking with the three young men. Akston tells how they majored in physics and philosophy, a choice which “amazed everybody but me: modern thinkers considered it unnecessary to perceive reality, and modern physicists considered it unnecessary to think.” Akston was the head of the philosophy department, Dr. Stadler was the head of the physics department. All three men held jobs during college. “They had time for everything they wanted, but no time for people or for any communal campus activities.” Akston spent many late evenings discussing issues with the three
men in his back yard. The young men never spoke of what they might do; it was always what they would do. Occasionally, Akston would feel both fear and hatred because he knew the world which they were to enter was intent upon hurting and destroying them. It wasn’t a single man Akston was angry at, “…it was the whole of the earth rolling into an obscenity of horror, pushed by the hand of every would-be decent man who believed that need is holier than ability, and pity is holier than justice.” On one occasion, watching John sleep through the night and sunrise made him, not pray, but re-affirm his belief in that which is right and “the certainty that the right would win and that this boy would have the kind of future he deserved.”
(789) Akston used to feel admir
ation for Stadler, but the “…mortal sin of Robert Stadler was that he never identified his proper homeland…He hated stupidity.” He ended up giving up on all mankind. Stadler thought he was in a competition for the three young students. He wanted to own them. Each of the men had intended careers: Galt was to be an inventor; Francisco was to be an industrialist; Ragnar was to be a philosopher. Akston says that Stadler, above everyone else, bears the most “guilt for the evil which is now destroying the world…He was the man who delivered science into the power of the looters’ guns.” He did this by establishing the State Science Institute. On the day of its formation, Galt quit his course with Stadler. Stadler had become fed up with stupidity and med
iocrity; he decided that the world is bad and cannot be changed. Akston tells Dagny, “What I want you to understand…is the full evil of those who claim to have become convinced that this earth, by its nature, is a realm of malevolence where the good has no chance to win…Robert Stadler now believes that intelligence is futile and that human life can be nothing but irrational.” Akston knew that these students would never work for the looters, whom Stadler had helped to gain power.
(791) Dagny had asked Akston earlier if he was proud of his students. He responds by saying, “Every man builds his world in his own image…He has the power to choose, but no power to escape the necessity of choice.” When a person does something by their own will and thought, that r
esult is their virtue. Akston says, “I am proud of their every action, of their every goal – and of every value they’ve chosen.” By saying these words and looking at Galt, Akston makes it clear to Dagny and Galt that Akston is also proud of Dagny, as Galt’s future wife.
P791. Dagny, Francisco and Galt walk two miles up a narrow mule path to Francisco’s mine. Surveying the scene, Dagny can see that she is looking at “…the story of human wealth…the wilderness…[the] men…[the] complex machinery…[that] did most of the work.” Dagny briefly wonders what will happen to Francisco when he discovers that she and Galt are involved. As they discuss the mine, Dagny gets an idea to add to Francisco’s operation by building a railroad to the mine. Galt and Francisco watch her intently. In a matter of moments, Dagny designs the entire rail system that would be needed. This is the story of capitalism: Dagny is calculating and creating, using her min
d and her experience, forming the world into a situation that is better…and right. All of a sudden, Dagny realizes that she is designing a tiny railroad and that she can’t work on it because she would have to “abandon a transcontinental system!” Francisco says he would hire her and he knows that she could get a loan from Midas. Dagny says that she wishes that she could stay and somehow avoid the thoughts of knowing that the world, and especially her railroad, are crashing. Galt tells her that she’ll have to hear all about the crumbling world if she decides to stay. He says, “Nobody stays here by faking reality in any manner whatever.” Dagny appreciates the fact that Galt doesn’t sugarcoat any of his comments.
(795) Dagny discovers that it was Galt who sent Francisco to Woodstock to bring Dagny into the fold. Galt had told Francisco, “If you want your chance, take it. You’ve earned it.” Francisco was puzzled by the comment when Galt spok
e those words first and he is puzzled now. However, Francisco gets called off suddenly, leaving Galt and Dagny alone. Galt explains to Dagny how he knew how much Francisco cared for her because of their conversations about “one of our most important future strikers.” Galt felt that Francisco had earned the chance to regain his romantic relationship with Dagny.
(796) Francisco rejoins Dagny and Galt. He tells Dagny that he knows she’ll be leaving soon and asks if she would stay with him for the remainder of time. Dagny leaves the decision with Galt, who says he would prefer Dagny to stay with him. Francisco assumes that Galt will be using the time to convince Dagny to join the strikers. In reality, Galt simply wants to be with her. Dagny is filled with relief. “…She knew that had his answer been different, it would have destroyed the valley in her eyes.” Galt and Dagny walk down the trail alone and Galt tells her that he understands that she was testing him to see if he was altruistic.
He reiterates that “…nobody stays here by faking reality…” {Underlining TMP} Dagny is especially relieved when she sees “…an exact picture of what the code of self-sacrifice would have meant…” if she had ended up staying with Francisco and re-kindling her romance with him. “…Galt, giving up the woman he wanted for the sake of his friend, faking his greatest feeling out of existence…she, turning for consolation to a second choice, faking a love she did not feel…Francisco, struggling in the elusive fog of a counterfeit reality, his life a fraud staged by the two who were dearest to him…” Dagny can see how “…no battle was hard, no decision was dangerous where there was no soggy uncertainty, no shapeless evasion to encounter.”
(798) Galt makes things even more clear to Dagny, “Did it ever occur to you…that there is no conflict of interests among men, neither in business nor in trade nor in their most personal desires – if they omit the irrational from their view of the possible and des
truction from their view of the practical?…The businessman who wishes to gain a market by throttling a superior competitor, the worker who wants a share of his employer’s wealth, the artist who envies a rival’s higher talent – they’re all wishing facts out of existence, and destruction is the only means of their wish. If they pursue it, they will not achieve a market, a fortune or an immortal fame – they will merely destroy production, employment and art.”
(799) Having reached the valley, they part. Dagny goes to Hammond’s grocery store. Aside from the absence of sexuality, she revels in feeling like his wife. Hammond points into the sky where they can see that someone is trying to fly into the valley like Dagny did. The plane is making circles like the pilot is looking for someone. Dagny runs to the airfield where she can look through a telescope. She is stunned to find that the plane is Hank Rearden’s. Part of her wants to hide, not to be seen by the plane or the men of the valley. S
he climbs to a spot where she can’t be seen from below and she calls out to Hank (and symbolically to all those who are continuing to strive to stay alive in the other world). The plane leaves and Dagny knows that she will never go back to her relationship with Rearden. However, she admires his courage in continuing the fight. Dagny asks herself, “Was she certain that no chance remained for the world of Taggart Transcontinental?” She knows that she cannot join the strikers if her certainty of the death of Taggart Transcontinental is not full. That night, she continues to ponder whether to go back or to stay with the strikers.
P802. With Galt, Francisco, Akston and Mulligan, Dagny is asked whether or not she will join their group and remain in the valley. She asks if she can tell them her answer on the next day, the day when everyone will leave. They agree. Galt tells her to make the decision using her mind, not her heart.
Says Akston, “Consider the reasons which make us certain we are right,…but not the fact that we are certain…Don’t be tempted to substitute our judgement for your own.” Like the tramp, Jeff Allen (P658), Dagny takes responsibility for the decision and, ultimately, her purpose in life. She knows that “…no action could be lower or more futile than for one person to throw upon another the burden of his abdication of choice.”
(804) The discussion turns to who will remain in the valley through the year and who will go back to the other world for eleven months. Mulligan reports that more of the strikers will remain in the valley this year and that by next year, the entire group will remain in the valley year-round. Galt announces that he hasn’t decided if he is going back. The others are suprised and try to convince him not to go because the looter’s world is in a dangerous state. Moreover, Dagny and Rearden are the only people they are waiting to join
their fold. Akston is the only one who knows that Galt is in love with Dagny and, if Dagny goes back to New York, Galt will follow to protect his only primary concern in the world: Dagny. Mulligan, worried about the prospect of continuing without Galt, says the first three words of the sentence, “What would we do without you?”, before catching himself Mulligan realizes that by asking the full question, he would’ve been asking someone else to live his life for him. This is a cardinal vice among producers. Mulligan tells Galt that the world will not be safe for him. The same machines which had produced and made life better will now be safety hazards for everyone remaining. He then describes his vision the specific events which will occur as the economy falls apart. The culmination will be when “…the Taggart Bridge will collapse…” Dagny interrupts and says, “No, it won’t!” She has made her decision to return. She describes her reason for returning, “…I cannot bring myself to abandon to destruc
tion all the greatness of the world, all that which was mine and yours, which was made by us and is still ours by right…”
{Dagny incorrectly believes that the greatness of the world is in the buildings and the factories. In fact, true greatness is in the morality of people. Buildings, factories, wealth and a society’s culture are only measures of the productiveness, positiveness and morality which was achieved previously. The current morality, however, can only be measured by the current rate of ach
vievemnent. The graph below shows the situation in mathematical terms.
The world has taken Path A and the Galt’s followers have taken Path B. Going back to high school mathematics, velocity is the change in the y dimension (achievement) divided by the change in the x dimension (time). Path B’s velocity is positive while Path A’s velocity is negative. Dagny thinks that the world must be saved because the overall level of achievement is higher. In other words, she wants to reverse the trend in Path A and make the line head back upwards. Looked at individually, Dagny’s personal achievement would have an upward trend or positive velocity. However, she is dwarfed by the rest of the looter world, which in total drive Path A.
Meanwhile, Galt’s group of producers, even though their absolute level of achievement is lower, are accomplishing at a significantly higher rate.
!In addition, their withdrawal from society is causing Path B to plummet even faster.}
{This concept of velocity can also be applied to the smallest act and to a single individual. One of the values and principles of Lewis Bolt & Nut Company is that “Our greatness is achieved through our self-discipline, from doing what we know is right.” Doing what is right puts a person or a country on the path to achievement. When a society, on whole, is achieving, it will have a positive velocity. This will lead to happiness and prosperity. The beginning of the process is knowing right from wrong. Atlas Shrugged is Rand’s description of what is right and wrong. The following drawing illustrates the progression:}
(807) Galt tells Dagny the rules leaving the valley: She can’t tell anyone abou
t the valley and she can’t try to find the valley again. Then, Francisco, Dagny and Galt all walk home together. Francisco makes a comment heavy with meaning, “Dagny, all three of us are in love…with the same thing, no matter what its forms…You’ll be one of us, so long as you’ll remain in love with your rails and your engines…The only man never to be redeemed is the man without passion.” Dagny thanks him because she can see that he is happy. Francisco responds that he is happy because he can see that she will remain passionate about her cause. “…the measure of the hell you’re able to endure is the measure of your love. The hell I couldn’t bear to witness would be to see you being indifferent.” Francisco asks Galt and Dagny if they’d like to come inside his house a have a drink to toast the future. Galt announces that he has decided to go back to the other world. Francisco understands why. He can see, without any malice,
how Dagny and Galt fit together. Symbolically, Francisco extends to Dagny and Galt the two silver goblets which were Sebastián d’Anconia’s and were to have been used by Francisco and Dagny. He says to Galt, “Take it…You’ve earned it…”
(810) Dagny and Galt discuss Galt’s decision to go back to New York. He says that he’s not there to protect Dagny, but “…to be there on the day when you decide to join us.” Dagny asks Galt what he would say if she said that her decision to go back to the looter world was final. He says that such a decision would be worse than a lie because it would be self-sacrifice. Galt tells her that it is his own selfish reasons motivating him to keep the door to the valley open to her: he wants her in the valley. Dagny tells Galt, “I want you to know this. I started my life with a single absolute: that the world was mine to shape in the image of my highest values and never to be given up to a lesser standard, no matter how long or
hard the struggle.” She tells him that the mission of her life is to deliver the world to the valley, that she is fighting for everything that the valley represents, that she is fighting for what she loves.
(812) Galt tells Dagny that if she fails in the other world, not to “damn this earth” or “damn existence.” He says that she can only enter the valley with “an intransigent mind.” The key is her mindset and her morality, in which she must be firm. The key is not her ability to carry others or convince others that her morality is right. “You will not enter it until you learn that you do not need to convince or to conquer the world. When you learn it, you will see that through all the years of your struggle, nothing had barred you from Atlantis and there were no chains to hold you, except the chains you were willing to wear.” {Underlining TMP} They say goodnight. Dagny doesn’t sleep and feels Galt’s presence
all night.
P813. The next morning Dagny leaves the valley, taking with her only some clothing and a gold coin she had earned. At the airport she is blindfolded by Galt, who then flies her out of the valley for an hour to an unknown location. He tells her not to look for him until she is ready and then he will be easy to find. Galt leaves and flies away.
Chapter III – Anti-Greed
P816. Dr. Stadler is angry, sarcastic and confused about why he is in Iowa. He was invited on short notice and has been escorted by two men on his trip. He speaks with Ferris, who is subservient, slippery and sly. A crowd has been invited to the rural location which is hot and humid. The people and the objects seem to be oozing with perspiration. Ferris tells Stadler that they are going to witness “an historical event.” He says that only the best scientists are present and that Stadler, of course, represents that standard. Stadler can see that Ferris has coordinated this entire event and is now acting like t
he “master of ceremonies.” Stadler wants to know more about exactly what is going on, but Ferris leaves to speak with the press. Stadler can see that grandstands are set up to witness some event. About three hundred yards away, there’s a strange building “…with massive stone walls…an air of silent malevolence, like a puffed, venemous mushroom…devoted to some secret rites of savagery.”
(818) Stadler feels a massive desire to escape. Stadler continually wants to escape from knowing truth because the truth is too painful to him. Every time he realizes a hint of the reality that is occurring at this event, he stops himself from thinking about it. He refuses to use his brain for rational thought; instead, he thinks only through his emotions. Rand believes that truth must always be faced. Stadler can only vaguely see that “…the darkest secret of the occasion…was that which had made him agree to come.” That secret is that according to the looter philosophy, men cannot be allowed to think a
nd must be ruled by force.
(819) Ferris has Stadler seated so that he is viewed as the source of the achievement. The press are directed to Stadler, who wants to say that he knows nothing about the event, “…that he had been brought here as a pawn in some confidence game, almost as…as a prisoner.” However, Stadler knows that that would be acknowledging a reality which he cannot face. Instead, he feeds his own haze covering reality: “The State Science Institute is not the tool of any private interests or personal greed, it is devoted to the welfare of mankind, to the good of humanity as a whole…” He thinks that he feels “loathing” for the men who have brought him here, but in reality he is feeling “self-loathing.” He learns from the press that the event for which they are gathered is a demonstration of Project X. Ferris, sensing that Stadler is playing the game the way he wants, becomes more relaxed and even more insolent. Ferris knows he has
Stadler in his control. Two cars come driving up to the event, carrying Mr. Thompson, the President. The press and Ferris leave Stadler rush to greet the President. Thompson then comes over to Stadler and is introduced. Rand describes Thompson as a “little shyster” who says respectful words to Stadler but looks at him with “a glance like the visual equivalent of the words: What’s your angle?” Stadler does not want to admit the fact that he is “anxiously pleased by the little shyster’s nod of approval.”
(821) All the audience members are given special glasses. Ferris introduces Project X with hyperbole. Stadler notices a deserted farmhouse and thinks it is unusual that a herd of goats are being kept there, chained to the ground. Stadler is pleased by the sight of a young goat reveling in the joy of being alive. Ferris explains that Project X has to do with sound rays, which at certain frequencies can be deadly. The specific invention of Project X is
a device which emits sound rays and is called the “Thompson Harmonizer.” Stadler can vaguely see that the forces of evil are like a machine with no real core. Ferris does not specifically say what the purpose of the machine is, but instead wants to let the demonstration explain. The truth is that the Harmonizer is a tool of forcing and controlling people. Says Ferris, “It has long been conceded by all progressive thinkers that there are no entities, only actions – and no values, only consequences. Now, ladies and gentlemen, you will see the action and the consequences of the Thompson Harmonizer.” {The looters do not believe in existence (“entities” mean beings of existence) or values (notions of right and wrong); instead, they think that actions (the end results) and consequences (the implications of those actions) are what define reality. The producers and Rand believe that the first requisite for existence is the acknowledgement that existence exists. From this follows
the fundamental tenet of morality: life is good and death is bad. From this basic tenet follows all values. From those values comes actions and from those actions comes consquences.}
(823) In a single minute after the Harmonizer is turned on, the crowd witnesses all the goats destroyed, like a cube of wax melted by a bonfire and the farmhouse reduced to a pile of rubble. A woman screams and faints. Ferris watches Stadler’s face. The crowd is nervous and “seemed to be waiting to be told what to think. Stadler asks Ferris who invented “that ghastly thing?” Ferris tells Stadler that he (Stadler) invented it. But the Harmonizer, he says, is only for defensive purposes. {Ferris is portrayed by Rand as sloppy in his speech when talking about social goodness issues, but clear and direct when talking about force and coercion.} Says Ferris, “Internal enemies can be as great a danger to the people as external ones…Perhaps greater…So
cial systems are so precarious. But think of what stability could be achieved by a few scientific installations at strategic key points.” Stadler understands the evil nature of the Harmonizer’s intended use, but he refuses to admit his understanding. Ferris was smart enough to know that “No private businessman or greedy industrialist would have financed Project X…He couldn’t have afforded it. It’s an enourmous investment, with no prospect of material gain.” Instead, Ferris got funding for Project X by telling people that it was personally sponsored by Dr. Robert Stadler “…whose judgement and integrity they could not doubt.” Stadler has been used as a pawn to assist Ferris to convince people to make decisions based on faith and not reason.
(826) With the demonstration completed, a broadcast to the nation begins, extolling the supposed greatness of the new invention. The various leaders a
ll speak platitudes. Mouch announces that it was Stadler who was the genius behind the invention. During one of the speeches, Ferris informs Stadler that he is to be the last speaker and he gives Stadler a copy of a speech he wrote for him. Ferris, working to insure that Stadler will read the speech and continue playing along, tells Stadler that scientists could be endangered physically if this broadcast and announcement to the nation does not come off well. Furthermore, he tells Stadler that it would be very hard for an unemployed scientist to find a job today.
(828) Stadler can see that the audience knows that they are to be the “targets” of the Harmonizer; he wonders how they will avoid the recognition of this reality. Ferris tells Stadler, “Reason is the scientist’s only weapon – and reason has no power over men, has it? At a time like ours, with the country falling apart, with the mob driven by blind desperation to the edge of open riots and violence – order must be maint
ained by any means available. What can we do when we have to deal with people?” When Stadler became fed up with human mediocrity and inability, he gave up on mankind (P781). Ferris is trying to use this fact to convince Stadler to go along and read the speech.
(829) Ferris says that he wants to protect Stadler’s name, but truth is not what matters, only illusions matter. Ferris says that Stadler’s name can be honored or not. The only truth is that how Stadler’s name is viewed is fungible. He asks Stadler, “Are you thinking of truth, Dr. Stadler? Questions of truth do not enter into social issues. Principles have no influence on public affairs. Reason has no power over human beings. Logic is impotent. Morality is superfluous. Do not anwer me now, Dr. Stadler. You will answer over the microphone. You’re the next speaker.”
(830) Stadler feels terror for three reasons: First, he knows, from his days as a producer, that to be productive and mo
ral, one must accept the naked truth, even if it causes fear, like the fear he now feels because of the truth he has seen. Second, he feels physical fear because he knows that whether he gives his speech or not, the world is headed for physical destruction. Third, he is terrified by “the knowledge that by betraying the first, one delivers oneself into the realm of the second.” If a person does not accept reality, rightness and reason, then that person becomes a party to physical destruction and the world of faith, force and fear. Stadler’s speech will be his suicide and he can only vaguely see this truth. A young reporter, the only man of ability in the press corps, approaches Stadler as he walks to the podium. The reporter begs Stadler to “Tell them the truth!” Stadler rebuffs the reporter for having “treasonable motives.” Stadler reaches the podium and begins the speech prepared by Ferris.
P831. Dagny is somewhere in
Nebraska, in a town where the people are fearful of asking why they must bear the pain of shouldering the world’s burdens. Dagny wants to tell them all to “Snap out of it!” She boards a train going to the nearest airstrip. Glancing at a newspaper, she sees that her disappearance has been a major news issue, especially the question of whether she has simply been the victim of an accident or whether she deserted and is a traitor to the state. Arriving at her apartment in New York, she calls for Hank and finds that he is still in Colorado searching for her. Calling Colorado, she finds and speaks with Rearden. She can’t tell him the entire story. He wants to know if she is back for good and she says yes. Hank knows nothing about the valley and he continues to wonder where the producers of the world have gone.
(836) Dagny goes to the office and finds Eddie speaking with Mr. Meigs, a man from the government, who is directing the scheduling of trains. Meigs acts like a bullying policeman
or military gangster. He and Dagny clash immediately. Meigs tells Eddie to schedule the trains as he has laid out and leaves the room. Meigs is the “The Director of Unification” in charge of the Railroad Unification Plan. A law has been passed in Dagny’s absence in which all railroad revenues go into a pool and are distributed by the government based upon need. The number of trains each railroad runs is now defined by the government. All track is available for any railroad to use and each railroad must maintain its track in good working condition, regardless of how frequently their track is being used and by whom. Taggart Transcontinental has more trains running on competitor tracks than vice versa and, because Taggart Transcontinental doesn’t have to pay for that use, they are profiting from the new law.
(837) Dagny can see that Eddie has aged in his attitude. He is “…saturated by the withering look of resignation to a pain accepte
d as hopeless.” {Eddie can be viewed in contrast to Francisco’s comment to Dagny that “The only man never to be redeemed is the man without passion.” This is a clue to reason why Eddie will die at the end of the book.} Eddie tells Dagny that train schedules are being diverted because of Washington politics. Businesses now have less freedom in how they run their operations. Dagny discovers that the Winston Tunnel was never dug out and that the old line was never built around the tunnel. They are running transcontinental traffic, but on someone else’s track, without paying for the usage. Taggart Transcontinental has made money in Dagny’s absence.
(838) Jim walks into her office and says, “Dagny, there’s a lot of things to discuss, a lot of important changes which – …Oh, I’m glad to see you back, I’m happy you’re alive…Now, there are some urgent – ” Dagny tells him a ficticious story about what happened to her during the past month. She tells Eddie to tell the pres
s the same story. Jim wants her to do press interviews in order to reassure the public that she has not quit and that the economy is not as bad as it really is. Dagny refuses.
(840) Meigs joins their discussion and Dagny learns more about the Railroad Unification Plan. The Atlantic Southern is being cheated by the law. Their President recently committed suicide. Dagny can’t believe that Jim went along with the Railroad Unification Plan. She knows that he is simply trying to not recognize that the government’s actions are truly evil. Jim makes excuses, whines and blames. Finally, he makes the social welfare arguement for what has happened: “We couldn’t permit a railroad like Taggart Transcontinental to crash!” {Interestingly, this is the same strand of logic used by Dagny in returning from the valley.} Dagny looks at Jim, who “…appeared to her suddenly as a man who had tried to find a middle c
ourse between two poles…” Meigs watches Jim with “part-astonishment, part-disgust.” Meigs is an unabashed looter and says, “In the long run, we’ll all be dead,” implying that they all might as well do whatever they want now. Meigs continues to refuse to deal with Dagny, but, before leaving, he tells Jim to get Dagny, “…if she’s the little girl who’s such a wizard at railroading,” to make things work and stop the trains from wrecking.
(844) Jim tells Dagny that she’s scheduled to be on the radio show of Bertram Scudder later that evening. He says that all the higher-ups in the country want her to say that she has not quit and that Directive 10-289 is a good piece of legislation. The public knows that no one wants to work for the politicians. Dagny realizes that the
*politicians are looking for a sanction from her. They want her to condone their actions and then go about working hard so that they, the looters, can live off her productiveness.
(845) Dagny finds that there is now a “Morale Conditioner” in the government whose name is Chick Morrison. Jim tries to use guilt to make Dagny go on the radio show by telling her, “If you don’t appear after all those announcements, it will support the rumors, it will amount to an open declaration of disloyalty!” Dagny won’t buy it. Then Jim says that if she doesn’t c
omply, Taggart Transcontinental will be hurt financially by the government. She won’t buy that either. Dagny feels “…certain that it was not the country’s panic he wanted to stave off, but his own – that he…and all the rest of the looting crew needed her sanction, not to reassure their victims, but to reassure themselves…”
(847) Later that day, Lillian Rearden comes to see Dagny at her office. Lillian tells Dagny, in the form of a command, that Dagny will appear on the radio broadcast. Dagny rationally asks Lillian to explain why her presence will occur. Lillian tells Dagny how Hank’s signature on the gift certificate has been used as propaganda for the state. Then Lillian tells Dagny that it was their affair and the threat of exposing it that ca
}used Hank to sign the Gift Certificate. Lillian knows that “…Rearden Metal was more than an achievement to him, it was the symbol of his ability to achieve, of his independence, of his struggle, of his rise. It was his property, his by right…” Lillian tells Dagny that Hank made a huge sacrifice “…for the privilege of using your body. You have undoubtedly taken great pleasure in the nights which he spent in your bed. You may now take pleasure in the knowledge of what those nights have cost him.” Lillian calls her a whore and sarcastically compliments her being able to get such a large price for her work. Dagny calmly and wisely listens. Lillian goes on, taking pleasure in telling Dagny how she, Lillian, destroyed and took her husband’s greatest accomplishment. Lillian thrives on power, on seeing others act on her will, even though she is personally incapable of actin
g morally of her own will. Having calmly listened to Lillian’s lust for destruction, Dagny tells Lillian that she will appear on the radio show.
P850. Dagny is at the radio station for the interview. Lillian and Jim Taggart are watching from a booth behind a glass wall. Bertram Scudder, the announcer and interviewer, is speaking to the audience, trying to “sound cynical, skeptical, superior and hysterical together, to sound like a man who sneers at the vanity of all human beliefs…” Scudder describes Dagny’s ficticious story of her disappearance and how she selflessly and heroically {from the looter perspective} gave of herself in order to come back and save the country. Readying herself for the interview, Dagny is in a state of non-feeling and this makes the moment easy. However, pain comes back when she thinks that Galt will have to hear about her affair with Rearden over a radio broadcast.
(851) After being introduced, Dagny tells the country th
at her purpose is “…to tell you about the social program, the political system and the moral philosophy…” which is governing the country. She says that it has been said that both she and Hank Rearden are supporters of the current system. She reminds the audience that Rearden had been vocally opposed to all government policies until he signed the the gift certificate of Rearden Metal under Directive 10-289. She then tells how she had been Rearden’s mistress for two years. She says that she is talking about the affair “…not as a shameful confession, but with the highest sense of pride.” She is proud that Rearden chose to have her and she doesn’t really care what other people think about it.
(852) In the observation booth, Lillian and Jim know what is about to happen, now that Dagny has played out the card they thought was their leverage over her. However, neither of them will “…assume the responsibility of a movement…” The man in the control booth has heard so many confessions
that he doesn’t sense anything wrong with what is being said. Dagny says that their affair “…was the ultimate form of our admiration for each other, with full knowledge of the values by which we made our choice. We are those who do not disconnect the values of their minds from the actions of their bodies, those who do not leave their values to empty dreams, but bring them into existence, those who give material form to thoughts, and reality to values – those who make steel, railroads and happiness.” She then says that it was the blackmail of the government leaders, of public disclosuring their affair, which caused Rearden to sign the gift certificate. With these words, the microphone is knocked over and the broadcast is immediately stopped. The studio is engulfed in bedlam, blame and justification.
(853) Dagny walks out and gets a cab to her apartment. She thinks that her actions may have caused her to lose Galt and she feels “desolation.” However, she takes solace in knowing that she has faced th
e truth and she recalls Galts words: “Nobody stays here by faking reality in any manner whatever.” (See P796.) Entering her apartment, she’s shocked to see Rearden, not only because of his presence, but also because he appears both “confident” and “aged.” She can tell that he’s heard the broadcast. They embrace but do not kiss. Dagny breaks down and cries, letting his strength carry her, knowing that this is all right. In this instant she sees and realizes that he has always had a depth of st
rength, despite his “insulting cruelty” after their first night together (P253). Dagny knows that she must tell him that their affair is over. “She felt terror at the thought that she would not have the strength to do it, and terror at the thought that she would.” He doesn’t want her to say anything. They’ve both suffered because of the outside world and he doesn’t want there to be any pain originating between them. He says that he wants to talk first
: “I love you. As the same value, as the same expression, with the same pride and the same meaning as I love my work, my mills, my Metal, my hours at a desk, at a furnace, in a laboratory, in an ore mine, as I love my ability to work, as I love the act of sight and knowledge, as I love the action of my mind when it solves a chemical equation or grasps a sunrise, as I love the things I’ve made and the things I’ve felt, as my product, as my choice, as a shape of my world, as my best mirror, as the wife I’ve never had, as that which makes all the rest of it possible: as my power to live.” He’s loved her from the first moment he saw her and he knew it when he signed the gift certificate. He understands how wise she has been in their relationship. “You knew that the physical desire I was damning as our mutual shame, is neither physical nor an expression of one’s body, but the expression of one’s mind’s deepest values…You said, ‘I do not want your mind, your will, your be
ing or your soul – so long as it’s to me that you will come for that lowest one of your desires.’ You knew, when you said it, that it was my mind, my will, my being and my soul that I was giving to you by means of that desire.”
(857) He knows his mistake: “I had accepted the one tenet by which they destroy a man before he’s started, the killer-tenet: the breach between his mind and body. I had accepted it, like most of their victims, not knowing it, not knowing even that the issue existed.” He accepted the value that his bodily desires are evil, when they are really “the highest of moral values.” {Life is good and death is bad. With bodily desires we make choices which define our value of life. Rearden let the looter values regarding sex creep into his brain a
!nd then he beat himself up for holding those values. He didn’t believe that “philosophy” was a part of work, like making steel. “I had accepted, unwittingly and by default, the tenet that ideas were of no consequence to one’s existence…I had surrendered that which all of their claptrap is designed to subvert and to destroy: man’s reason…I had cut myself in two, as the mystics preached, and I ran my business by one code of rules, but my own life by another. I rebelled against the looters’ attempt to set the price and value of my steel – but I let them set the moral values of my life. I rebelled against demands for an unearned wealth – but I thought it was my duty to grant an unearned love to a wife I despised…”
(859) He laments that he has hurt Francisco and Dagny, “the only tw
o person I ever loved.” He wants Francisco back in his life. He knows that it was his actions which were the cause of the “disgrace” to Dagny, despite the fact that Dagny would not say it was a disgrace to her. He tells her, “It was I who kept our love hidden as a guilty secret – they merely treated it for what it was by my own appraisal.” {This is reminiscent of Eleanor Roosevelt’s quote, “No one can hurt you without your approval.”} By hiding their affair, he lied and gave the property of their affair to the public. He knows that even when he signed the gift certificate, he was “still faking reality.” (See P559) Her action on the broadcast has now freed them both. And although he’s lost everything, he will not give up. He now knows that he has the “right to be p
roud of my vision.” Saying that he loves her will be the one possession of his past that he’ll have in the future. He knows that their relationship is over and that she’s in love with someone else because she spoke about their relationship in the broadcast in the past tense.
(861) Dagny responds, “It’s true. I’ve met the man I love and will always love,” although she isn’t sure if this man (Galt) will ever be with her. Dagny tells Rearden that she loves him and that she doesn’t want him to apologize to her because “…you have not hurt me, your mistakes came from your magnificent integrity under the torture of an impossible code…” Watching him made her feel “admiration.” She sees him as “a man with an immense capacity for the enjoyment of existence.”
y She tells Hank, “I don’t think I can explain it, but I feel that I have committed no treason, either to you or to him.” {She is saying that she feels guiltless and, amazingly, it comes off positively.}
(862) Hank wants to know more about where she has been, but she will only tell him that there is a John Galt; he is the inventor of the motor they found; she has been to a place where all the producers are located and living. He understands the nature of the decision she has made: to come back to Taggart Transcontinental and the looters instead of giving up.
Chapter IV – Anti-Life
P864. Jim Taggart is walking down a New York street on August 5th. He gives a $100 bill to a contemptuous beggar and realizes “that the beggar’s mood matched his own.” He wants to celebrate Dagny’s demise, but he can’t admit this to himself. During the day, he has been at several gatherings
:
o At a luncheon it was revealed that Argentina will be nationalizing and becoming a “People’s State.”
o At another gathering, discussion was about “neighborly duties and the welfare of the globe…” The United States government announced they will be making loans to Argentina and Chile.
o Another gathering was about the formation of a new organization, The Interneighborly Amity and Development Corporation (IADC), which will have operating control of all industrial properties in the Southern Hemisphere. Both Taggart and Boyle will have a stake in this organization, which will loot under government sanction.
o At another gathering Jim learned that d’Anconia Copper will be nationalized on September 2nd.
(866) Although Jim stands to make monetary gains from the IADC, this
is not what he wants to celebrate. Money doesn’t motivate him. Although he will not admit it, it is destruction that he wants to celebrate. He becomes terrified when he realizes that he’s indifferent to having money or becoming a beggar. As he continues thinking, he realizes that he doesn’t want to see the truth which is at the end of the mental “blind alleys” which he keeps approaching.
(868) He finds himself at home, but not really because he wants to be there. Cherryl has grown into a competent and confident woman. The sight of her to him is danger, “…a signal to shut off his sight, suspend his judgement…” She looks at him with eyes that are “…neither friendly nor hostile, but watchful and questioning.” They begin talking about Jim’s big “de
Qal.” He becomes paranoid and accuses her. then he tells her about all the trading of favors and influence he has managed. She’s remains calm and unimpressed. He tells her how the real big “setup” is coming with the nationalization of d’Anconia Copper. He tries to give it a social welfare spin and when she doesn’t respond positively, he accuses her of being “…indifferent to the philosophy of social welfare.” She tells him that she knows he’s not interested in social welfare. Jim changes the subject and tells her that he can provide her with anything she wants because of all the money he has. She continues to be unimpressed. She evenly asks Jim why Dagny’s radio broadcast comments were never rebutted by the government. He has no answers, other than getting angry and irritated. Eddie Willer’s name comes up. Cherryl likes him b
ecause he’s honest while Jim thinks he’s a “…damn half-wit who doesn’t have the faintest idea of how to deal with practical reality.” Cherryl can clearly see that Jim is not facing reality, that his whole game is to cover the truth.
(872) They continue discussing the broadcast. Jim enjoys telling how Bertram Scudder was made the scapegoat and how he, Jim Taggart, avoided any blame. Thinking this, Jim feels “…the drugged, precarious state of floating past the deadliest of his blind alleys, the one that led to the question of what was himself.” Jim is a destroyer and he enjoys seeing other people destroyed. Cherryl asks Jim if situations like what happened to Scudder are “…the sort of … victories you’re winning?” Jim tries to justify himself, “I’m not to blame! I have to take things as I find them! It’s not I who’ve made this world!” Cherryl tells him that he’s saying the same things tha
t her father, a looter, used to say on occasion.
(873) September 2nd is to be their first wedding anniversary. Throughout their year of marriage, Cherryl has supported herself on a “pillar” of thought, “…not to get scared, but to learn…” This “pillar” is now crumbling as Cherryl begins to see the evil which is Jim Taggart. In the beginning of their marriage, she hadn’t understood his behavior. He liked to see his wife in social settings especially when she demonstrated her lack of social graces. Cherryl didn’t understand Jim, but she decided anyway to become everything she thought Jim Taggart’s wife should be. “She set out to learn with the devotion, the discipline, the drive of a military cadet.” She lived and grew by the producer’s code of values. When she began getting “…not the attention of ridicule, but of admiration,” Jim was no longer pleased with his wife in social settings. He even told her that she embarrassed h
im, but he wouldn’t tell her why. Cherryl can’t understand the cultural things of which Jim partakes: art which is no more than children’s drawings, books which “…purported to prove the futility of science”, magazines which “propounded cowardly generalities.” She tells Jim that she doesn’t think much of Dr. Simon Pritchett and he mocks her, as well as her upbringing.
(876) Cherryl is beginning to see that Jim is a fraud. However, he’s not being paid for being his fraudulence and so she’s puzzled by his motivation. She begins questioning him about his position in the railroad and he becomes defensive. He turns her questions into the suggestion that she married him for his money. Naturally, she rejects the suggestion. He tells her that “…Love is faith…” and that he needs her. He likes being admired, but not for any particular reason. He simply wants unearned admiration. He comes home from Washington one night very happy because he has knowledge that
will affect everyone and he’s one of a few individuals who have that knowledge. He tells her, “You think that running a railroad is a matter of track-laying and fancy metals and getting trains there on time. But it’s not. Any underling can do that. The real heart of a railroad is in Washington. My job is politics.” He boasts about how great it will be when the “giants of industry” are stopped. He says it’s for the common good. He says it’s justified because he has no selfish ends. He says, “We had to stop them from stopping!” He tells Cherryl, “My job is bigger than any job you can hope to imagine. It’s above anything that grubbing mechanics, like Rearden and my sister, are doing. Whatever they do, I can undo it. Let them built a track – I can come and break it, just like that!”
(879) Cherryl wants to think that his work is about greatness, but she is beginning to think otherwise. When he seeks her apology, she gives it and unknowingly sanctions him.
She senses he is both thankful for her and contemptuous of her at the same time. She tries to love Jim on faith, but she sees that to do that she must shut out the truth. She sees a battle ensuing between faith and truth. Her concluding direction is to learn more. She goes to the Taggart Terminal and asks some workers about Jim. She finds that they all hold a low view of him. Then she asks to have lunch with Eddie. He tells her that it is Dagny who runs Taggart Transcontinental. Everything makes sense to Cherryl. Later that day she asks Jim why he never told her the truth about his work. He tries to make her feel guilty, accusing her of “crudeness and selfishness.” He tells her, “Is that all the love you felt for me, you sneaky little hypocrite? Is that all I get for my faith in you?” Cherryl does not feel guilty. Instead, she ends up with a “sickening disgust for a nameless reason.” She realizes and tells Jim th
at she had attributed Taggart Transcontinental’s success to Jim (P256) when all along it was Dagny. Jim calls Cherryl a “rotten little bitch” and Cherryl doesn’t respond because, in Rand’s description, Cherryl is now effectively dead.
(881) Cherryl’s aim now becomes to learn why Jim married her. He says it was love and that he doesn’t enjoy being questioned. “It’s not a thing of the mind, but of the heart.” He begs her to just accept him because he needs her and he is lonely. She can see that he is not suffering as he is saying he is, although there is some type of suffering inside of him. Cherryl thinks to herself that, “In place of the men she had struggled to find, men who fought for their goals and refused to suffer – she was left with a man whose suffering was his only claim to value and his only offer in exchange for her life.” She continues to be motivated to “…learn to understand the things that had destroyed her.” She can’t figure
out what he has wanted from her. She loved him for all his positive points, but he just wanted to be loved. He tells her, “I don’t want to be loved for anything. I want to be loved for myself – not for anything I do or have or say or think. For myself – not for my body or mind or words or works or actions.” He doesn’t like her “petty materialistic definitions.” He tries to hurt her by telling her, “You’re a gold-digger of the spirit. You didn’t marry me for my cash – but you married me for my ability or courage or whatever value it was that you set as the price of your love.” This is actually true. Jim’s “value,” as perceived by Cheryl, was her reason for marrying him. He, however, wants love to be causeless. “Love is blind,” he says. “You have the mean, scheming, calculating little soul of a shopkeeper who trades, but never gives!…What’s the generosity of loving a man for his virtues? What do you give him? Nothing. It’s no more than cold justice.
LNo more than he’s earned.”
(884) Cherryl has Jim much better figured out now. She tells him, “All of you welfare preachers – it’s not unearned money that you’re after. You want handouts, but of a different kind. I’m a gold-digger of the spirit, you said, because I look for value. Then you, the welfare preachers…it’s the spirit that you want to loot…You want unearned love. You want unearned admiration. You want unearned greatness. You want to be a man like Hank Rearden without the necessity of being what he is.” Jim wants to sarcastically offer a toast to Francisco, but Cherryl will not join him and so Jim walks out of the room. Cherryl leaves the apartment to try to gain perspective on the situation.
P886. Dagny is at home on that same evening, August 5th. She’s been fighting fires at work and not accomplishing much
. of anything. She keeps hoping to see Galt on the street, but does not. Cherryl arrives at Dagny’s apartment and says, “I came to pay a debt.” Cherryl is a trader and wants to apologize for her comments to Dagny at her wedding (P392). Dagny is amazed at how much and how quickly Cherryl has learned. Cherryl tells Dagny that she knows that Dagny is the producer, the one running Taggart Transcontinental and that Jim is “some sort of vicious moocher.” Cherryl is distraught and Dagny tries to calm her and reassure her. Cherryl tells Dagny that she doesn’t want “charity.” Dagny tells Cherryl that people can make claims on other people for their virtues or for their sufferings. Dagny wants to help Cherryl because of her virtues. Cherryl is amazed and asks Dagny, “You mean, you wouldn’t be kind to any
thing weak or whining or rotten about me? Only to whatever you see in me that’s good?” Dagny responds, “Of course.”
(889) Cherryl tells Dagny that Jim and his friends view Dagny as “…hard and cold and unfeeling.” Dagny tells Cherryl that the only reason Jim feels like that is because she “…will not grant him a feeling which he does not deserve.” Dagny doesn’t give any feelings to people who suffer pain because of their own immorality. She chooses to give “admiration, approval, esteem” to inviduals who, in her opinion, are worthy. To them, she is not cold or unfeeling. Dagny continues, “Those who grant sympathy to guilt, grant none to innocence. Ask yourself which, of the two, are the unfeeling persons. And then you’ll see what motive is the opposite of charity.” The answer, says Dagny, is justice. When you grant sympathy to someone who makes you feel guilty, you cannot grant sympathy to innocence.
[When you are consumed with charity, you cannot dispense justice.
(890) Cherryl is afraid of the looters, "...what they are and...and that they exist." Dagny reassures her, "You must never think that their existence is a reflection on yours..." Dagny tells Cherryl to see and judge the world with her own mind, not someone else's. Cherryl wonders how she can live among people like Jim, people who are animals and believe "...that love is blind, that plunder is achievement, that gangsters are statesmen and that it's great to break the spine of Hank Rearden!" She tells Dagny how she's been on a rollercoaster ride and can't see how she can hang on any longer. She asks Dagny how she has remained "unmangled." Dagny says she did it "By holding to just one rule...To place nothing - nothing - above the verdict of my own mind." Dagny has been able to h
old on through difficult times because of "The knowledge that my life is the highest of values, too high to give up without a fight." Dagny tells Cherryl, with great seriousness, that treasuring one's life "...is the highest, noblest and only good on earth." Moreover, Dagny says that the people who seek to destroy other's joy in life are truly evil people. Cherryl starts to leave and Dagny tries to stop her, knowing that Cherryl is on the edge. Nevertheless, Cherryl leaves, promising Dagny that she will come back.
P892. After Cherryl had left their apartment, Jim wallows in misery, destroying various objects in his apartment. Lillian unexpectedly arrives. She remarks that the parties they both attend are not as fun as they used to be because the people attending are less refined and more like "butcher's assistants." The intellectuals of the day are becoming like bullies. She tells Jim that he is "...one of the most p
owerful men..." in the city and they are both amused by his unearned power. Lillian finally reveals the purpose of her visit: she wants Jim to stop Hank from divorcing her. She admits that she was surprised when he finally put through the papers for the divorce. Jim understands and asks her, "You didn't think that guilt is a rope that wears thin, did you, Lillian?" She becomes hysterical, crying "I don't want to let him go free! I won't permit it! I won't let the whole of my life be a total failure!" Hank's divorce plans call for completely cutting Lillian off, which would make her acquisition of the Gift Certificate "no victory" in sum for Lillian. If it goes through, Lillian sees that she will have to worry about money. Jim is amused and takes pleasure in her demise. All Lillian wants Jim to do is put in a word with Mouch, but Jim knows that he doesn't have the influence and, moreover, she has nothing to offer him. Jim also tells
1Lillian that Hank Rearden is now a "safe" man since the broadcast because the truth of his affair with Dagny is public.
(897) They both are happy that d'Anconia Copper is to be nationalized, especially because Jim and Francisco were once friends. With all this discussion of destruction, Jim is happy. He considers this to be the proper time for a celebration. Lillian reminisces about seeing Hank for the first time and "...that he was not afraid." Jim says that Rearden still has no fear and that all her efforts have failed. She says that he has always been very possessive: "His mills, his Metal, his money, his bed, his wife!" She is glad that she will be "...Mrs. Rearden - at least for another month." Lillian says contemptuously that the title of "Mrs. Rearden" to Hank meant "...a symbol of honor...
Astainless honor...above reproach." Jim finds himself attracted to Lillian, not for her beauty, but for the fraudulence of her beauty, represented by an exposed safety pin. He tells her, "I'd like to see him beaten...I'd like to hear him scream with pain, just once." They are both intent on destruction, like kids smashing sandcastles. Lillian says, I can't build his mills - but I can destroy them. I can't produce his Metal - but I can take it away from him. I can't bring men down to their knees in admiration - but I can bring them down to their knees." Jim doesn't want to hear any more and tells her to "Shut up!" Lillian's words strike too close to the person that Jim is and will not name to himself: a blatant destroyer.
(899) She spills a drink on herself and, in trying to clean the spill, he gropes her breast
C. They engage in non-passionate sexual actions, described by Rand as "...revulsion...automatic motions...snickering giggles...expected ...mockery... hatred...
secrecy...guilt...furtive, smutty look...obscenity." Their sex is the opposite of the sex which Hank and Dagny have had. Jim and Lillian engage in "...an act in celebration of the triumph of impotence." Jim's thoughts are "...part-horror, part-pleasure - the horror of committing an act he would never dare confess to anyone - the pleasure of committing it in blasphemous defiance of those to whom he would not dare confess it. He was himself!" The only words spoken during their sex are by Jim, who says, "Mrs. Rearden." This name is the only thing left about Hank Rearden which they can destroy.
P900. Cherryl comes home, sees a purse and hat and hears Jim's and
4 a woman's voices. She runs into another room, feeling "horror" at the knowledge that Jim is cheating on her, that his actions have no positive purpose and are "evil for evil's sake." When the woman leaves their apartment, Cherryl confronts Jim. His response is, "Sure!...So what? What are you going to do about it?" In Jim's tormented and evil mind, he wants to throw his sex with Lillian in the face of Hank Rearden. He's proud of his supposed destruction of the Rearden name. He blurts out to Cherryl the name of his object of destruction, "Mrs. Hank Rearden!" Cherryl, being both rational and naive, assumes that Jim wants a divorce. Jim doesn't want it, but instead wants them both to be able to fool around with whomever they want. Cherryl knows that Jim wouldn't have married her if she was not virtuous
>. What she can't figure out is why he married her. He says that he wanted to be loved "...Without reasons!" He says that he thought that she would love him no matter what he did. Furthermore, he as much as admits that he loved her because she was common and without worth. He tells her that he loved her out of his sense of charity, that he wanted her to know that she "owed it all" to him. Cherryl discovers that he married her both because she was common and without worth, and because she wanted to rise and improve. By having this combination, Jim could appear charitable to the person without worth and yet also have something to loot as she strove to get better. Cherryl can see Jim's true nature and tells him, "You...you're a killer...for the sake of killing..." Jim hits her. She falls, gets up and runs out of
the apartment. "She knew only that she had to escape and that escape was impossible."
(904) Walking on the street, Cherryl thinks about getting a job, but she believes that, wherever she goes, she will be looted for her virtues. Cherryl has a hard time articulating what she is thinking. She believes that her desire to be good is morally good, and yet, she is faced by the practicality that this world is punishing her for being good. If she decides to be practical and not be good, then she violates her morality. She sees a faceless "grin" saying to her, "People like you will always stay honest, people like you will always struggle to rise, people like you will always work, so we're safe and you have no choice." Cherryl sees the skyscrapers of the city and thinks to herself that the builders of these skyscrapers are now martyrs, people who sacrificed themselves and have been preyed upon by the looters. These builde
rs should have been heroes, but now they are martyrs. A hero is someone who is revered for their accomplishment; a martyr is someone who is revered for what they lost.
(905) Cherryl continues walking and thinks of Dagny with hope, "but Dagny was a lonely victim, fighting a losing battle..." She walks past a woman's shelter, but she doesn't want to go in because she knows that social workers in the shelters expect those who enter to have some sort of guilt. A person cannot be innocent and enter the shelter. The social workers feed on the depravity of those under their care. She can't name all the things she is feeling, other than that she is frustrated, she sees horrible evil in the world and she believes that she can do nothing about it. She continues walking into the middle of the night and runs into a social worker on the street. The social worker assumes that Cherryl has been out "chasing pleasures" and castigates Cherryl for her behavior. Cherryl breaks fr
ee of the grip of the social worker and runs "...straight down the street that ended at the river..." Cherryl runs "...with full consciousness of acting in self-preservation..." and runs into the river and drowns. Cherryl's action is not a suicide, not self-sacrifice, not death for a cause. Instead, it is more like the final desperate actions of a trapped animal. Cherryl Taggart died to preserve her concept of her "self."
Chapter V - Their Brothers' Keeper
P909. Copper is now an extremely scarce commodity. On September 2nd, a copper wire breaks along a Taggart Transcontinental line in California. No one related to the incident wants to take responsibility because they all assume that blame will follow. "They did not know what was safe or dangerous these days, when the guilty were not punished, but the accusers were; and, like animals, they knew immobility was the only protection when in doubt and danger." Dagny r
eceives a call from an anonymous "young roadmaster" in California who goes around all chains-of-command to tell Dagny about the broken wire and the lack of wire to make the repair. Dagny re-routes copper to California to fix the problem. She tells Eddie that California produces oil and that is important to the income of the country.
(910) Later that day, she meets with Jim in his office, where he delays her there for some purpose unknown to Dagny. Over the past six weeks, Dagny has seen rich and healthy companies forced to sacrifice themselves for weaker companies; the same thing has happened among the states of the union. Eugene Lawson said on a radio broadcast, "In this enlightened age...we have come, at last, to realize that each one of us is his brother's keeper." Dagny tells Jim, "the Railroad Unification Plan isn't working, is it, Jim?" Jim gets typically defensive, blaming others and justifying himself.
(912) Jim has changed since Cherryl's death, whic
h was called "an inexplicable suicide" by the press. Immediately after learning of her death, Jim had said "It wasn't my fault!" He was struck with terror, but Dagny could also see in him "a touch of triumph." Since the death, Jim has spent more time with Dagny, feigning the need for "support and protection," although Dagny can tell that his real motivation is to loot off of her virtues.
(913) Dagny thinks about how business is now conducted based upon influence and pull; no longer is business ruled by the market, merit and value. Dagny can see two types of looters in the world: the humanitarians and the gangsters. Eugene Lawson is a humanitarian; Cuffy Meigs is a gangster. Lawson has championed the sacrifice of those with wealth for those without. Cuffy Meigs, the Railroad Unification Plan Director, is exploiting his position for her personal gain. They are alike in that "...need was regarded as the sole title to property...Both held the immolation of men as proper a
`nd both were achieving it."
Sitting in Jim's office, Dagny can see that society has gotten exactly what it wanted, "...in unobstructed perfection, they were serving need as their highest ruler...Man had been pushed into a pit where, shouting that man is his brother's keeper, each was devouring his neighbor and was being devoured by his neighbor's brother, each was proclaiming the righteousness of the unearned and wondering who was stripping the skin off his back, each was devouring himself, while screaming in terror that some unknowable evil was destroying the earth."
{The evil is in their moral code, as shown in figure XX above. This figure outlines the looter's world where morality is based upon need, where no one is working for their own gain and where they perceive the highest values to be either brute force, pain or the absence of guilt.
T Under the looter code, the code of need, producers initially produce for themselves, but as they are taxed and as their "selfishness" is preyed upon by both humanitarians and beggars, the producers end up seeing that the code of need requires them to produce for someone else's benefit. In the end, the best a producer can do is live without guilt for being selfish. The looter logic has evolved over the years, beginning with wanting only a small portion of the wealth of the producers, continuing on to the belief that the rich won't be hurt by taking from them and culminating in the frenzy of the moment, that no one should starve when someone else has enough to last them a week.}
{The code of need should be contrasted with the code of joy:
Under the code of joy, there is only one segment, the producer, because everyone's role is to do
something which is productive and brings them joy. Everyone's role is to be productive and to add value to society. Why is it that so many people enjoy gardening or working on their car or building model airplanes? Because when a person gardens, that individual expends the effort and that individual reaps the rewards. Even a government worker could be imagined existing within this moral code, truly adding value, doing an excellent job. This worker would be herioic. A gangster and a beggar, however, would not be able to find existence if the prevailing moral code was the code of joy. People would have no tolerance for the use of coerci
on and children would be raised believing that the use of force is wrong, except when used to counter force. Beggars would receive no charity. Like the dog that once begged for food at the dinner table, they would find their behavior ineffective and they would find their survival dependent upon their own efforts. At the same time, one might be able to conceive of a humanitarian existing in the moral code of joy. However, such a humanitarian would be motivated to help others help themselves, not to help others by simply giving them something that they have not earned. Under the code of joy, producers would not feel guilty for their ability to receive rewards through their efforts; they would not feel pity for those in need; and they would certainly not feel guilty for their feelings of joy. Under a moral code of joy, people would strive to be postive forces in the world. They would work for their own benefit, and reap fair rewards. They would not take advantage of others, through the use force or
3 guilt. An individual's gain would not come at another individual's expense. A productive individual would create a better world through their positive actions.}
(915) Jim tells Dagny that she must do something about the desperate state of affairs because he doesn't know what to do. He says, "How should I know? It's your special talent. You're the doer." Jim wants Dagny to protect Taggart Transcontinental from the ravages of the looters, but he doesn't want to admit that the looters exist. He is frustrated that she won't argue with him like she used to before her month-long disappearance. She says that she told him three years ago what the looter path would get them...Now she will only take his orders. She tells him, "I'm not going to help you pretend - by arguing with you - that the reality you're
q talking about is not what it is, that there's still a way to make it work and to save your neck. There isn't." {I'm curious why she doesn't head back to the valley if she's so sure there's no way out.}
(916) Jim wonders what he should do. Dagny tells him to "give up" and let the doers of the world re-build the world. Even though Jim doesn't have a clue what to do, he continues trying to guilt her into working: "You could save us now, you could find a way to make things work - if you wanted to!" Dagny can see that this statement is the culmination of the looter philosophy, a philosophy based on "...the non-objective, the non-absolute, the relative, the tentative, the probable..."
(917) Truth, reality and reason all exist. However, the government is not the holder of truth. It is blatantly false to believe, as the looters do, that "...obedience to objective
B reality is the same as obedience to the State..."
{Everything has an rational explanation. The code of joy holds that those who understand how something works, those who produce through reason, should be fairly compensated for the value of their knowledge and should be free to exist and manage their enterprise. The code of need holds that these same producers should be slaves to people in need of the product produced and that the producers should go on producing either out of guilt (for a humanitarian), pity (for a beggar) or coercion (of a gangster).}
(917) Seeing his tactics not working, Jim begins begs Dagny to help him: "Dagny, I'm your brother...Why should you be happy while I suffer...Don't I have the right to demand any form of happiness I choose? Isn't that a debt which you owe me? Am I not your brother?"
Jim looks at her with a glance "...like a prowler's flashlight searching her face for a shred of pity. It found nothing but a look of revulsion." Nevertheless, Jim continues, "I'm your brother, therefore I'm your responsibility, but you've failed to supply my wants, therefore you're guilty! All of mankind's moral leaders have said so for centuries - who are you to say otherwise? You're so proud of yourself, you think that you're pure and good - but you can't be good, so long as I'm wretched. My misery is the measure of your sin. My contentment is the measure of your virtue." Dagny allows him no claim on her. "You bastard," she says. In the past, Jim had always made his claims of need to Dagny for someone else's benefit. Now he has made claims for himself. {Claiming for someone else made Jim a humanitarian. This latest interchange was made him a beggar.}
(918) Suddenly, Jim excitedly tells Dagny that a radio announcement is co
ming and that she must hear it. The news over the radio, however, is not what Jim had expected. The legislatures of several South American socialist states had secretly planned on nationalizing d'Anconia Copper. The nationalization occurred, but it was found that d'Anconia Copper was a worthless shell. Every location of d'Anconia Copper around the world had been literally blown up at the exact moment when the nationalization occurred. The radio announcer reports that Francisco d'Anconia has disappeared without any message. Dagny listens reverently, thinking of the proud and capable Francisco that she knew as a child and young adult. Jim laments the loss of the massive amount of money he would have gained from the nationalization.
(920) Walking through the streets of New York and looking into people's faces, Dagny can tell that the destruction of d'Anconia Copper is far more significant than other industrial companies which have been lost. Later that n
ight she has dinner with Hank. Rearden Steel is making steel at full capacity and Rearden knows that they are breaking laws, but neither he nor anyone in the company nor anyone in the government care. The people in the restaurant look at Dagny and Hank differently than they did before the night that Dagny admitted her affair on the radio. Before they had seen her as a selfish producer. Now they look at both Dagny and Hank with "...awe in the presence of two persons who dared to be certain of being right." Hank is "bored to death." He's been forced into being a criminal in order to make his factory run. Dagny "...wondered how long a man could continue to work against himself, to work when his deepest desire was not to succeed, but to fail." Hank learns from Dagny
that Francisco and Ragnar are agents of the "destroyer," that Dagny has been with all of the defectors, that Francisco had actually come to recruit Hank as a defector the night when Dannager vanished and Hank and Francisco sprung into action to fix a problem at the plant (P447). Hank tells Dagny that Minnesota is the last place in the country that has food. If Minnesota collapses, the country will starve in the upcoming winter. They talk about Francisco and his destruction of d'Anconia Copper. Hank continues to feel unworthy of Francisco after the way he berated Francisco (P633) for losing his steel (P484) and potentially taking Dagny from him. The others in the restaurant, all looters, are all speaking with indignance about Francisco's action, saying things like "...An act of anti-social destruction...How could he?...He had no right to do it!...Just a worthless playboy..." Francisco's action has, in Rand's
words, "...blasted the nature of their world into the open..." Just then, on the screen high above the city which normally carries the date, the following words are displayed: "Brother, you asked for it!" followed by Francisco's full name. Rearden erupts in laughter, saluting Francisco and his philosophy.
P925. On September 7th, an important mine in Montana is shut down for lack of copper wire. The mine is started again only after taking the office area's wire, leaving the office to use candles for light. Dagny redirects copper from Minnesota to Montana. Even as the state of the economy worsens, the government continues increasing its control on business. Californi
a enacts a special oil tax which forces all the California oil companies out of business. Meanwhile, Rearden gets special dispensations from government officials. He finds this curious and senses it as an "ugly danger" because, previously, government officials' actions were always of "causeless antagonism."
(927) Over the past two weeks, Philip has come to the mill to see how Rearden is feeling. Rearden has answered that he doesn't feel anymore and tells Philip to come to his office only if he wants to meet. Nevertheless, Philip shows up again at the mill one day. He tells Hank that he needs a job and Hank asks, "Why should I [give you a job]?” Philip responds, “Because I need it!” Rearden tells Philip that he, Philip, would “be of no use t
o me whatever.” Hank asks Philip, “What will happen if I put you there [working on a furnace] and you ruin a heat of steel for me?” Philip responds, “What’s more important, that your damn steel gets poured or that I eat?” Hank asks Philip, “How do you propose to eat if the steel doesn’t get poured?” Later in the conversation, Philip says, “It’s a moral imperative, universally conceded in our day and age, that every man is entitled to a job…I’m entitled to it!” Hank tells Philip that jobs do not grow on trees. People must earn jobs. Philip begins to see that Hank is voicing a philosophy and he tells Hank, “You’re only a businessman, you’re not qualified to deal with questions of principle, you ought to leave it to the experts…” Hank cuts him off and asks Philip why it’s taken him so long to realize that he is completely dependent.
(930) Philip admits that he’s worried that Hank might sto
p giving him money. Philip can see that Hank no longer has “…a sense of duty and moral responsibility…” Philip says that Hank should help him because they are brothers. He asks Hank if Hank has any concern for his feelings. Hank asks if Philip has concern for his feelings. Philip replies, “Yours? Your feelings?…You haven’t any feelings. You’ve never felt anything at all. You’ve never suffered!”
(931) Rearden now can see reality more clearly. Philip’s moral code is that his “…pain be held as the highest of values.” Hank, on the other hand, has suffered for the things he loves. For Hank, “…joy is the goal of existence, and joy is not to be stumbled upon, but to be achieved, and the act of treason is to let its vision drown in the swamp of the moment’s torture.” Hank can see that for Philip, “…there’s no such thing as joy, there’s only pain and the absence of pain…” Philip is part of a group of people who are “…
the anti-living…Men who worship pain…” Hank tells Philip to leave.
(932) Later that day Hank is in a courtroom for his divorce proceedings. The proceedings have been rigged ahead of time. The purpose of both sides’ lawyers is not to serve justice, but to hold their jobs. Hank had once held an “…austerely pitiless respect…for his contract of marriage…” Now, he has seen enough evil in his wife that he will play within an evil system in order to get out of his marriage. Hank can see over the span of time that the “looting bureaucrats” have not taken any blame and, in fact, have extended their powers while the “chained industrialists,” who have paid the extortions, are guilty of the fact that they have accepted their role with guilt. After the proceeding, Hank’s lawyers tell him that the other side was easier on him than expected. Rearden wonders if the government is planning something against him.
(934) Back at the mill, the Wet Nurse
* approaches Rearden and asks for a job. He tells Rearden, “I want to earn my keep.” He says he’ll do whatever Rearden wants him to do. These are good reasons for wanting a job. Rearden tells him that he’d give him a job if the job would be approved by the Unification Board. However, that may not happen. Rearden tells the Wet Nurse that he might be more likely to get a job from another steel company. The Wet Nurse says he only wants to work for Rearden. Realizing that a job with Rearden will be impossible, the Wet Nurse tells Rearden that he will stay in his current government (looting) position and do what he can to help Rearden. The Wet Nurse then tells Rearden that the government has been placing “real goons” inside the plant as workers and that they are planning some action against Reard
en Metal. Hank thanks the Wet Nurse for his warning.
P936. On September 11th, another copper wire breaks, this time in a small grain elevator in Minnesota. Dagny ships some precious copper to Minnesota. The copper industry, what remains of it, has been nationalized. Jim Taggart shuts down Taggart Transcontinental’s dining cars. In past years, the harvest grain would come rushing out of Minnesota and an army of freight cars would arrive in all parts of the state to receive the grain and then distribute the grain into “…the hungry flour mills, then bakeries, then stomachs of the nation…”
(937) Dagny gets calls at her desk from various individuals in the
V Taggart system looking for common items to keep the railroad going. The calls are for “…copper wire…nails…paint…rail spikes…screwdrivers…light bulbs…” Taggart Transcontinental is becoming desperate. {It is highly unrealistic that the Vice President of Operations of a major railroad would receive calls for basic purchaseable items.}
(938) The government has been funding projects which it perceives will help the nation, although none of these projects are being demanded by the market, which represents the populace of the country. The projects include opera productions, a psychology study on brother-love, an electronic cigarette lighter, a big screen television for a tourist area in Washington, a cosmic ray study opera and a thirty million dollar subsidy for planting soybeans in Louisiana. Soybeans have been deemed to be a
Pfood which is in the public interest by Emma Chalmers, a buddhist socialist who has become something of a martyr since her son, Kip, died in the Winston Tunnel rail disaster (P584). {In a touch of irony, Rand sarcastically writes about how the soybean has been used extensively in Asia and how “…There’s a great deal that we could learn from the peoples of the Orient.” Atlas Shrugged was published in 1957, about fifteen years before the Japanese economic machine began showing its strength.}
(938) The government further restricts the economy by forbidding private air travel. Writes Rand, “An industrialist traveling to save his factory was not considered as publicly needed and could not get aboard a plane; an official traveling to collect taxes was and could.” Dr. Stadler has become a voice for the looting elements of society. He
supports the cosmic ray study, saying on the radio, “An enlightened citizenry should abandon the superstitious worship of logic and the outmoded reliance on reason.”
(939) Cuffy Meigs, the para-military gangster, rules Taggart Transcontinental through force. He doesn’t know how to deal with Dagny because she uses powers of reason to achieve results. On September 14th, Dagny gets an anonymous call from a man in Minnesota, telling her that seven thousand of the fifteen thousand rail cars needed to bring in the
Minnesota wheat harvest will not be there. If the cars do not arrive, the crop will have nowhere to go and will rot. No one in Taggart Transcontinental talks about this situation because no one wants the blame. When Dagny later tries to find out from her employees if the cars were actually sent, she gets bureaucratic responses, like that the paperwork was all filled out. Finally, she discovers that Cuffy Meigs signed an order for the re-direction of the freight cars to Lousiana where they were to transport the new soybean crop. When Dagny calls a government official in Washington, she is indignantly told that “…it is a matter of opinion whether wheat is essential to a nation’s welfare…” Unfortunately, Dagny knows that there is no market demand for soybeans. {While sobeans may be good for people, it is not what they want.}
(942) Three days later, on the 17th of September, the
first newspaper story emerges of the Minnesota grain disaster. The story tells of an absence of grain cars and a presence of farmer violence. However, further stories do not appear; instead, the newspapers warn people “…not to believe unpatriotic rumors.” Taggart Transcontinental operators begin making frantic calls everywhere in the country for any type of rail car to hold and move the wheat. When no cars arrive, the farmers begin moving the grain themselves in trucks and wagons, but the grain they move is only a tiny part of the total. It begins raining in Minnesota and the grain starts to spoil. The government is aware of the problem, but doesn’t take any action because all the officials are too concerned about “…the precarious balance of their friendships and commitments…” Moreover, the officials believe that “…Those Taggart people have always moved that wheat on schedule, they’ll find some way to move it!” Onl
y when rioting is about to break out does the government get rail cars moving to Minnesota, but by that time it is too late. Further violence erupts in Minnesota. In Pennsylvania, Hank Rearden looks at a list of manufacturers of farm equipment who have gone bankrupt because they were not paid by their customers, the farmers, who could not sell their grain. Meanwhile, the harvest of soybeans has been reaped too early and is “…moldy and unfit for consumption.”
P943. On October 15th, a copper wire breaks in the Taggart Terminal in New York, extinguishing the signalling lights.
(944) Social occasions are where the looters normally make their business decisions, usually in advance of a formal meeting. Taggart Transcontinental has a board meeting the next week and a group of the directors, Mouch, Lawson, Ferris, Weatherby, Jim Taggart and Meigs, are having an elegant dinner. Dagny was invited and decided to attend, thinking her invitation was a symbol that “..
.they needed her and, perhaps, the first step of their surrender…” During dinner, they try to get themselves to believe that she buys into the idea that the Minnesota rail line is no longer needed. “They seemed to want her approval, without having to know whether she approved or not.” Dagny thinks they chose a setting replete with luxuious objects in order to gain “…the power and the honor of which those objects had once been the product and symbol…” Ferris says that both the Minnesota lines of Taggart Transcontinental and the transcontinental line can no longer be maintained. Given that more people live along the transcontinental route, he advocates abandoning the Minnesota line. Dagny sees that the midwest economy would be extinguished by such an action. She notices that Meigs is the most powerful person in this group of looters, because he is the gangster, the man claiming as his weapon brute force, the law of the jungle.
(947) Dagny argues to
the group to save Minnesota and the industrial East, to scrap the transcontinental route, because the industrial heart and mind of the country is along the Eastern seaboard. “You can run agriculture for centuries by manual labor and oxcarts. But destroy the last of this country’s industrial plant – and centuries of effort won’t be able to rebuild it or to gather the economic strength to make a start.” Her proposal goes nowhere. Mouch says that California is close to seceding. Weatherby says that Oregon is close to anarchy. Ferris says that India isn’t such a bad country and they don’t have an industrialized economy. Lawson says that having “…fewer material gadgets and a sterner discipline of privations…” would be good for people. Meigs says that the situation is clear: Minnesota is worthless and to keep force over the country you need transcontinental railroad traffic in order to move troops. Moreover, he says, “…There’s plenty of pickings left in California and Oregon and all those places.”
Meigs, the true looter, even proposes that the country expand and take over Mexico and Canada.
(948) Dagny can see that these men aspire to be like the “…fat, unhygienic rajah of India…,” who has complete control and collects wealth from his subjects. The looters don’t really value the industrial revolution because it has made life easy for the masses. “…Men who live by pulling levers at an electronic switchboard, are not easily ruled, but men who live by digging the soil with their naked fingers, a
re…” These looters actually want to go backward in time. Dagny can’t believe that they really believe these ideas, but she is indifferent because she doesn’t regard them as human.
(949) In the middle of the dinner, Dagny gets a call from the assistant manager of the Taggart Terminal who tells her of the broken wire (P943). She springs into action, leaves the meeting and runs towards the terminal in her evening gown. Her mind keeps pushing her, asking herself, “…what are gaining from your struggle? – yes! say it honestly: what’s in it for you? – are you becoming one of those abject altruists who has no answer to that question any longer?” Dagny tells her mind to turn off the questions as she approaches the terminal. Inside, she discovers that their elec
tronic signalling system is not working for lack of copper wire. She also finds that several key men are missing and that those present are acting like automatons. Her people don’t know what to do or how to think. To solve the problem, Dagny has to borrow an engineer from a rival company, the Atlantic Southern, because there is, in Dagny’s words, “…not a single mind left on Taggart Transcontinental.”
(950) Dagny orders her men to dismantle the nearby Hudson Line for its copper wire with a wrecking train. They can’t figure out how she’s going to get a wrecking train into and out of the terminal without use of their electronic signalling system. Rand glorifies and describes what this signalling system: “The pull of one of the small levers…threw thousands of electr
ic circuits into motion,…set dozens of switches to clear a chosen course…with no error left possible, no chance, no contradiction – an enormous complexity of thought condensed into one movement of a human hand to set and insure the course of a train, that hundreds of trains might safely rush by, that thousands of tons of metal and lives might pass in speeding streaks a breath away from one another, protected by nothing but a thought, the thought of the man who devised the levers.”
(952) Dagny calls for a meeting of all the Taggart unskilled workers so that she can describe her plan of action. The workers who assemble are “…the dregs of the railroad, the younger men who could now seek no chance to rise and the older men who had never wanted to seek it…” These men are all effectively slaves. Standing before the men wearing an evening gown, Dagny senses that she might look “preposterous.” Nevertheless, she decides to flaunt her gown, her being
and her entire philosophy of life. She tells the men that without copper wire and the use of electronics, they are going to go back in time and will run the trains with lanterns held by humans with written orders given to them by human runners. Someone questions whether or not Dagny’s plan will break Union or Unification Board rules; Dagny says she will take full responsibility. In the middle of addressing the workers, she sees Galt in the crowd and they hold a long glance together. Then she continues her address, “…the completion of [which] was a form of defiance against him…” The meeting ends.
(955) Dagny thinks it would only be fitting for her and Galt to see each other for the first time since the valley in the bowels of Taggart Transcontinental, a place which “…held the meaning of all her values, and a sense of secret excitement, as if a nameless promise were awaiting her under the ground…” For Rand, a place like the underground railroad at the Taggart Teminal
, which looks something like a New York City subway stop, is the “Mecca” of capitalism. Dagny walks “…not toward the platform and the exit, but into the darkness of the abandoned tunnels.” She says to herself, “You will follow me…it was neither plea nor prayer nor demand, but the quiet statement of a fact…” She hears footsteps behind her but doesn’t turn. She keeps walking into the tunnel and when she finally turns, at a dark and dirty section of the underground track, she sees that Galt has indeed followed her. She thinks of Galt’s first vision of her, which he had first described to her in the valley (P777): that she “…had a look of energy and of its reward, together…” They kiss and “…her body acquired the sudden power to let her know her most complex values by direct perception.” Through the touching of their bodies, Dagny sees how they both become more aware of each other’s self and each other’s body. She feels “…a cry of impatient demand, which…had the same quality of ambition as the course of her life, the same inexhaustible quality of radiant greed.” {To Rand, ambition in life is the same as a person’s sex drive. Napolean Hill, author of Think & Grow Rich, would most definitely agree. He wrote how a person could enhance their effectiveness, through a process called “sex transmutation,” in which a person translates their sex drive into productive achievement.} Galt looks into Dagny’s eyes, “…throwing the spotlight of consciousness upon them…” They fall to the ground; she bites into his arm; he knocks her head away and he enters her. “…then she knew nothing but the motion of his body and the driving greed that went reaching on and on, as if she were not a person any longer, only a sensation of endless reaching for the impossible – and then she knew that it was possible, and she gasped and lay still, knowing that nothing more could be desired, ever.” {This scene of exalting and edifying sex should be contrasted with the lusty and depraved sex of Jim and Lillian (P892).}
(957) Afterward, Galt speaks first, telling her how this is the setting in which he has always known her. Dagny says, “I love you.” She discovers that Galt has been watching her for ten years, including the night when a mysterious person was waiting outside the offices of The John Galt Line (P219). Dagny can see h
ow Galt has figuratively been the goal and representation of her entire life. Galt tells her that he knew about her relationship with Hank Rearden even before she was in the valley. When he first found out, he took it very hard. Within a couple days, he decided to get a closer look at Rearden by going to a conference Rearden was attending. In Galt’s words, he saw a man who “…walked swiftly, with the kind of assurance that has to be earned, as he’d earned it.” For a moment, Galt felt a stab of jealousy because Rearden “…was the image of everything I should have been…and he had everything that should have been mine…” However, Galt then saw the full picture: Rearden didn’t fully comprehend what was wrong with the world. Nevertheless, Galt could
see that he was the symbol of the world and the battle for which Galt was fighting. From that perspective, it made sense to Galt that Dagny should have chosen Rearden.
(959) Galt explains how he suffers and knows the importance of suffering. At the same time, he knows that “…pain is to be fought and thrown aside, not to be accepted as part of one’s soul and as a permanent scar across one’s view of existence.” He tells Dagny how he has worked as a “track laborer” for Taggart Transcontinental for twelve years. He says to her, “I love you, Dagny.” He may have to pay for this evening’s encounter, possibly even with his own death, because she is not ready to quit. He tells her that she is not “my enemy in mind” but that she is “…the only one who can lead them to find me. They would never have the capacity to know what I am, but with your help – they will…you’re the one reward
I had to have and chose to buy. I wanted you, and if my life is the price, I’ll give it. My life – but not my mind.”
(961) He asks her if she wants him to fix the electronic signalling system. She says that she wouldn’t want that because she doesn’t want to see him “…working as their serf!” Galt responds, “And yourself?” Dagny does not yet see this reality. He tells her that they can’t see each other until she is ready to quit. At that point, she is to draw a dollar symbol at the base of Nat Taggart’s statue in the Taggart Terminal and he will find her within twenty four hours. Dagny wants “…to follow him blindly…” but Galt won’t let her because he knows that she would be abandoning her mind and following her faith. He leaves her in the tunnel.
Chapter VI – The Concerto Of Deliverance
P963. On October 20th, the union representing Rearden Steel workers demanded a raise, not from Rearden Steel, but from the Unification Board
. On October 23rd, the Unification Board rejects the request. Hank Rearden hears the news through the newspapers. On October 25th, the newspapers begin writing in support of the workers, including suggestive editorial comments like, “We fear an outbreak of violence.” On October 28th, violence is caused at the plant by the newly-hired thugs. Hank thinks about his company like someone remembers a dead loved-one. There is nothing he can do. On October 31st, the government takes all of his money, through a bank attachment, charging that Rearden committed tax evasion. Rearden is through fighting and takes no action. Left with only two hundred dollars, Rearden maintains an “…odd, glowing warmth in his mind…” because of his bar of gold. {The bar represents his philosophical peace of mind.} On November 1st, he is told by a bureaucrat that the attachment was a mistake and that his money will be returned to him within a week
or so. The bureaucrat assumes (and asks) Hank if he will file a claim against the government, but Hank says he won’t. Later that day, Tinky Holloway calls Rearden and asks him to come to a “conference” with “top-level” people to “straighten” things out. Rearden declines, saying that he hasn’t asked for their help and they aren’t forcing him. Holloway says that the ruling men have something they would like to tell him. Rearden agrees to meet them on the fourth of November at 4 pm. Rearden knows the conference is some sort of trap, but he also knows that they have nothing to gain from him anymore.
(966) As Holloway hangs up, he begins speaking with Claude Slagenhop and Philip Rearden, who have been in the room with him. Philip was supposed to get a job at the mill in order to help with the trap. They now know that Rearden is unlikely to go for whatever trap they are planning. Moreover, Philip realizes that if they try the trap, Hank will quit; the mills will be seized by the govern
ment; Philip will be left with nothing; Philip will mean nothing to the men in power.
(967) On the morning of November 4th, Rearden receives a call from his mother, in a “…stale panic of chronic helplessness…” She asks him to come over to her house, which used to be his house, so that she can speak with him alone. After some convincing, Hank agrees. During the day, the workers at Rearden Metal are very tense. Later that day, Hank goes to his house for the first time in six months. Inside, he meets not only his mother, but also Philip and Lillian. “Their faces had a look of fear and cunning, the look of that blackmail-through-virtue…They had counted on his pity and dreaded his anger; they had not dared to consider the third alternative: his indifference.” His mother tells him that Lillian has been living in this house since the divorce. With eyes that are “…half-plea…half-triumph…”, she tells him, “I couldn’t let her starve on the city pavements,
could I?” Lillian and Hank’s mother had never really liked each other, but they’ve come together, in a manner similar to Lillian sleeping with Jim Taggart, in order to inflict “…their common revenge against him…” Hank asks his mother what she wants and she replies, “Mercy, Henry…” He asks for clarification and what she finally says is that she wants to know what he’s going to do about Philip’s and her allowance checks. Because of the mistaken attachment, his mother and Philip are not getting their allowance checks. Now his mother can’t get food at the grocery store. She asks him why he won’t arrange for credit with the store. He replies, “I will not assume obligations that I can’t fulfill.” It is no longer clear to him whether he owns his own money.
(970) Hank senses the irony of the situation: His mother has been advocating the liberal philosophy of the abolition of property rights for some time. Rearden tells her,
“You wanted me tied. I’m tied. Now it’s too late to play any games about it.” His mother begins to apply a political arguement, but senses it won’t work and so tries to evoke pity. That strategy does not work and so she finally apologizes to him: “We haven’t treated you right, all these years…We’re guilty…Will you find it in your heart to forgive us?” Rearden doesn’t know what action she wants him to take and she says she doesn’t want him to do anything, only to grant them the feeling of forgiveness. Rearden thinks to himself: “A year ago…he would have ascribed to her the virtue of sincerity in her own terms, even if they were not his. But he was through with granting respect to any terms other than his own.” He asks them what forgiveness would mean and his mother answers, “Why, it…it would make us feel better.” Rearden can see that they want forgiveness and yet they don’t have anything to offer in exchange. They want him to “feel some concern” for them, but he will grant them his
emotions only in exchange for something of value. His mother is shocked and says, “Henry, Henry, it’s not business we’re talking about, not steel tonnages and bank balances, it’s feelings – and you talk like a trader!” Hank responds, “I am one.”
(971) They make pleas to him for his forgiveness. His mother admits that he’s right, but says, “…what’s logic when people are suffering?” Rand explains the situation: “They did not know…that his merciless sense of justice, which had been their only hold on him, which had made him take any punishment and give them the benefit of every doubt, was now turned against them…” Hank admits that he understands them and the doesn’t care what happens to them. His mother says, “It’s your heart I’m trying to reach, not your mind
! Love is not something to argue and reason and bargain about! It’s something to give! To feel! Oh God, Henry, can’t you feel without thinking?” Rearden responds, “I never have.”
(972) Finally, his mother admits that what she, Philip and Lillian are really afraid of is Hank quitting. Rearden thinks about what Francisco has once said to him, “It is against the sin of forgiveness that I wanted to warn you.” Rearden had once thought that Francisco was vicious because of his depravity. Rearden told Francisco that he could forgive all the others in the world who had no purpose. Now Rearden sees that his forgiveness to all the supposedly helpless people was actually a sin. To grant someone forgiveness and not get something back is charity. Unearned gifts breed depen
5dence and resentfullness. Viewing his family, Rearden can see the “…brutal essence of all men who speak of…placing mercy over justice.” Justice means people receive only that which is fair. Mercy means being forgiving. When a person gives the emotion of forgiveness without receiving anything in return: They are being merciful, which is not fair. Over time, those who are continually treated with mercy begin to expect mercy or forgiveness for all their actions. These people become beggars, like Rearden’s family. {See also P889, Dagny’s conversation with Cherryl.}
(973) Rearden tells his mother, “…here’s what’s wrong with your idea of forgiveness: You regret that you’ve hurt me and, as your atonement for it, you ask that I offer myself to total immolation.” His mother screams at him, “It’s pity t
hat we need, pity, not logic!” He begins leaving and she panics, crying, “Wait! Don’t go!…We want to live!” Rearden, fully confident in his position, tells her, “I don’t think you do. If you did, you would have known how to value me.” Rearden knows that his family has valued destruction more than life.
(974) In a last ditch effort, and a return to his true nature, Philip tells Hank, “You won’t be able to quit and run away…without money.” Rearden realizes that the accidental attachment was not so accidental. The looters thought that taking his money would stop him from running away, especially if his mother, Philip and Lillian were somehow hostages.
(974) Lillian says to Hank, “You think you’re so good, don’t you?…Well, I have somethin
g to tell you!” For Rearden, “…love was a celebration of one’s self and existence…” Hank can see how Lillian chose him as a mate for all “…his strength, his confidence, his pride…” However, her goal had not been reverence of all his greatness, but instead it’s destruction. “The lust that drives others to enslave an empire, had become, in her limits, a passion for power over him. She had set out to break him, as if, unable to equal his value, she could surpass it by destroying it….it was his self-esteem she had sought to destroy, knowing that a man who surrenders his value is at the mercy of anyone’s will; it was his moral purity she had struggled to breach, it was his confident rectitude she had wanted to shatter by means of the poison of guilt – as if, were he to collapse, his depravity would give her a right to hers.” She tells him that she was unfaithful to him with a worthless person, Jim Taggart, three months before they got divorced. Lillian explifies “…the creed of n
on-identity, non-property, non-fact: the belief that the moral stature of one is at the mercy of the action of another.” Hank feels complete indifference to Lillian, who is self-destructing. Lillian knows that she is defeated and carries “…the look of a person seeing that after years of preaching non-existence, she had achieved it.” Hank’s mother asks him, “Are you really incapable of forgiveness?” Hank responds, “No, Mother…I’m not. I would have forgiven the past – if, today, you had urged me to qui
t and disappear.” That would have been a value-for-value trade. Hank leaves his house and drives to New York for his meeting.
(976) Driving towards the city, Rearden can see that, depending upon one’s outlook on life, New York is either a city of depravity or “…the greatest industrial achievement in the history of man…” His meeting is at the Wayne-Falkland Hotel and ironically it is in the same suite that had formerly been Francisco’s. Attending the meeting are Mouch, Lawson, Jim Taggart, Ferris and Holloway. Rearden te
rsely asks the men what they want. They give him rhetoric about wanting to work together and wanting to get the benefit of his opinion. Rearden tells them to cut the crap and just give him his orders. Holloway responds, “But, Mr. Rearden, we don’t want you to look at it that way. We don’t want to give you orders. We want your voluntary consent.” Rearden says that he understands and “…that that is the flaw in your game, the fatal flaw…” Rearden senses that they’re trying to hold him in the meeting for some reason. Mouch finally tells Rearden that they’re going to raise steel prices five percent. This price increase is tied into an increase in ore prices and rail rates. There will be no increase in steel worker wages, even though there’s a threat of violence. Mouch couches all of this in the rhetoric of public welfare and sacrifice. Finally, Rearden is told that they are planning on implementing a Steel Unification Plan, similar to the one for the railroads. The steel companies will make all th
e steel that they can, but their earnings will be put into a pool and divided by the number of furnaces each company possesses. Rearden listens indifferently. He asks them just what it is that they are counting on to make it work. Rearden is greeted by faces which understand and carry “…that stubbornly evasive look which he had once thought to be the look of a liar cheating a victim, but which he now knew to be worse: the look of a man cheating himself of his own consciousness.”
(981) Rearden details the facts of how the Steel Unification Plan would inequitably relate production to income. He wonders how long they think that Rearden Steel would be able to last under such a plan. They tell him that he is “…the richest, safest and strongest industrialist in the country at this moment!” But Rearden counters by asking them what will happen if he produces at a loss for an extended period of time. They respond, “You’ll manage!” Rearden asks, “How?” He receives no answer.
(982) Finally, Mouch asks if Rearden has a better idea. Hank says they should l
et Boyle go broke and let Rearden buy his plant. Mouch says, “That would be monopoly.” So Rearden suggests letting his “mills superintendent” buy Boyle’s factory. Mouch says, “Oh, but that would be letting the strong have an advantage over the weak! We couldn’t do that!” So Rearden says, “Then don’t talk about saving the country’s economy.” Rearden tells them that they are finally seeing the results of their needs-based philosophy. Holloway says that Orren Boyle is actually a good businessman who’s been hurt by some bad breaks and things out of his control, especially his investment in a “…public-spirited project to assist the undeveloped peoples of South America.” Rearden can see how their system has created the current results, including the Steel
Unification Plan. However, he wonders why these men still continue their course of action, like “…trembling hitchhikers who knew that their vehicle was about to crash into its final abyss…” Rearden suggests that they simply take over his mills, but they say they “…stand for free enterprise!”
(983) Rearden remembers Francisco’s action of not calling off the attack on the boat carrying his steel (P484). At the time, Rearden had thought Francisco’s action was treasonous, but now he can see that it was an action which upheld Francisco’s owns sense of virtue. Rearden can see that he was the one who has worked as a slave for the men now in power. The ultimate goal of the looters is “murder and expropriation.” They want to slowly kill the producers, and yet they also w
ant to take the results of the producers’ efforts. What Rearden still doesn’t understand is why they think that they can do this. He wonders and asks again how these men think that Rearden Steel can run at a loss and still survive. Ferris says that businessmen are “conditioned” to always produce. He says, “You can’t help it. It’s in your blood. Or, to be more scientific: you’re conditioned that way.” Then Lawson says that businesspeople have always said, at every government measure promoting public welfare, that the end result would be “catastrophe.” However, nothing bad has ever happened. Rearden tells them, “There are no chances left…There is no way to recover…What can save you now?” Jim Taggart responds, “Oh, you’ll do something!”
(986) Now Re
arden realizes that he has made the looter society possible because he had accepted all the prior laws and directives. He “…had given them cause to believe that reality was a thing to be cheated, that one could demand the irrational and someone somehow would provide it.” Rearden sees that the producers never asked “why?” with regard to allowing their income to be used for the public welfare and the needy. Thus, it is only logical that the supporters of need and public welfare, not to mention those people who are needy, should never ask the producers “how?” with regard to how they will generate the income. Rearden gets up to leave and they ask him what’s wrong. One man even tries to stop Rearden and he brushes him aside.
(987) Rearden gets back in his
car and drives towards his mill near Philadelphia. He is the picture of a successful man: “…a trim, expensively powerful car driven by a confident man, with the concept of success proclaimed more loudly than by any electric sign, proclaimed by the driver’s garments, by his expert steering, by his purposeful speed.” Rearden drives up to his mills, in love with them more than ever, because “…the mills were an achievement of his mind, devoted to his enjoyment of existence, erected in a rational world to deal with rational men.”
(988) Rearden sees flames where they should not be, hears gunshots and sees a mob “…squirming at the main gate, trying to storm the mills.” He diverts his course and, at sixty miles per hour, heads for the East gate. He briefly loses control and, with his headlights pointing into the ditch, sees a hand waving for help. He regains control and quickly brakes. He runs into the ditch and finds the W
et Nurse, who has been shot through his chest. The kid tells Rearden how he wanted to stop the riot, which was set up with instructions from Washington and is nothing more than an excuse to enact the Steel Unification Plan. The looters had delayed Rearden at the meeting in New York because they didn’t want there to be any evidence of wrong-doing to be found by Rearden. The Wet Nurse had finally taken a stand against the government abuse and refused to sign passes to let government troublemakers into the mill. The Wet Nurse had run from the office to get help and was shot in the back. He then climbed one hundred feet up a pile of slag in order to get to someone who could tell Rearden what had happened. The Wet Nurse knows that he will die and he makes a sarcastic remark, “What does it matter, Mr. Rearden…Man is only a collection of…conditioned chemicals…and a man’s dying doesn’t make…any more difference than an animal’s.” Rearden
evenly tells him, “You know better than that.”
(992) The Wet Nurse has finally the meaning of life: life is good and all values and morality spring from the fact that life is good. The Wet Nurse knew his truest joy in life when he took a stand and stuck his neck out. Sensing the kid’s death, Rearden asks him if he will “…try to live for me?” The Wet Nurse agrees and Rearden calls him by his name, “Tony,” as he picks him up to carry him to the factory hospital. Rearden kisses Tony on his forehead as he carries him out of the ditch. As Rearden approaches the hospital, Tony dies and Rearden thinks that only now is the body that he is carrying simply a “collection of chemicals.”
(994) Rearden feels an intense anger and “a desire to kill.” He’s not angry at the person who shot Tony or even at the Washington bureaucrats. Instead, Rearden is enraged at “…the boy’s teachers who had delivered him, disarmed, to
G the thug’s gun – at the soft, safe assassins of college classrooms who, incompetent to answer the queries of a quest for reason, took pleasure in crippling the young minds entrusted to their care.” Mothers don’t give their babies impure food, so why would they ever let their children receive impure education? “He thought of all the living species that train their young in the art of survival, the cats who teach their kittens to hunt, the birds who spend such strident effort on teaching their fledglings to fly – yet man, whose tool of survival is the mind, does not merely fail to teach a child to think, but devotes the child’s education to the purpose of destroying his brain, of convincing him that thought is futile and evil, before he has started to think.” {The problem with education is not professors who teach not to thin
/k. The problem is professors who teach that the paradigm of need and sacrifice is more noble than the paradigm of effort and reward.} Rearden thinks about how children and adults are forced to listen to so many voices, especially from teachers, which attempt to negate the spirit of individual ability and individual enterprise.
(995) Rearden carries the body into the hospital, lays the body down, and then walks out toward the front gate. The mob is being subdued, although some fighting continues around him and his workers are all carrying guns. Suddenly, Rearden is cracked on the head by some thugs who approached him from behind. These thugs are quickly shot at point blank range by a mysterious man who braces Rearden from falling to the ground. Rearden goes unconscious and awakes later in the hospi
tal. Rearden’s life, it turns out, was save by a man named Frank Adams, who had only worked for the company for two months, but somehow had had the presence of mind to alert the mill superintendent about the riot and help organize the men who were loyal to Rearden. Rearden tells the superintendent that he’d like to meet Mr. Adams. At this point, Rearden knows that “…his mills had ceased to exist.” He feels a “cleanliness” because he is completely aware of “…the sense of his own superlative value and the superlative value of his life. It was the final certainty that his life was his, to be lived with no bondage to evil, and that that bondage had never been necessary. It was the radiant serenity of knowing that he was free of fear, of pain, of guilt.”
(997) Rearde
rn thinks to himself that if the agents of the destroyer really exist, then he hopes that they come and get him. Just then, he tells a person knocking at the door to come in: It is Francisco, who has been incognito as Frank Adams. Everything begins making sense to Rearden. He tells Francisco, “…you kept your oath, you were my friend.” Francisco tells Rearden how he reported for work the day after d’Anconia Copper imploded (P918). Hank realizes that at Jim Taggart’s wedding party (P392), Francisco showed up as part of his effort to win over Rearden to the strikers. Francisco tells Rearden that he knows Rearden is ready to join the strikers. Rearden agrees.
Chapter VII – “This Is John Galt Speaking”
P1000. Dagny is awoken by someone ringing her doorbell. It is Jim Taggart in a state of panic. He tells her that Hank Rearden has quit, along with several of h
is key workers. “It’s a national catastrophe!”, he says. He tells her that she must find Rearden and bring him back. Her response is simple: she can’t find him and she wouldn’t if she could. She tells him to leave.
(1001) Dagny is happy for Rearden that he is now free. At the same time, she still is not rationally convinced to go with the strikers and so she says to herself, “There’s still a chance to win, but let me be the only victim…” She continues to act like Atlas, bearing the weight of the world. {I also wonder if she isn’t being a martyr.}
(1001) The newspapers refuse to acknowledge Rearden’s absence in the hopes that the public will not recognize this event. The press calls it “social treason” for an individual to say that Rearden was an important producer or to say anything unpatriotic regarding his disappearance.
(1002) Some days later, Dagny gets a letter from Rearden which says, “I have met him
. I don’t blame you.” Rearden doesn’t blame her for falling in love with John Galt. While Dagny is flattered to have received a letter from the valley, when she knows that such a transmission is normally prohibited, she also suffers from doubt about Galt and whether he is still in love with her.
(1003) Over the next month, Dagny works in a state of semi-consciousness and indifference. Her mind is focused on Galt. Browsing the company’s payroll records, she finds that John Galt’s name has been on their payroll for twelve years. She even notices that there is an address by his name.
(1003) More violence breaks out in the country and yet this news is not reported. Instead, the newspapers write “…of self-denial as the road to future progress, of self-sacrifice as the moral imperative, of greed as the enemy, of love as the solution…” The citizens act like zombies, ignoring the danger signals around them.
The people are told of an important radio and television broadcast to be delivered by Mr. Thompson on November 22nd. The purpose of the address is “To counteract the fears and rumors spread by the enemies of the people…Mr. Thompson…will give us a full report on the state of the world in this solemn moment of global crisis.” A major marketing campaign ensues to sell the upcoming speech. Jim Taggart tells Dagny that Mr. Thompson would like to speak with Dagny before his speech and, supposedly, hear her opinion of it afterwards. Dagny agrees to show up, under the condition that Eddie comes with her.
(1005) On the day of the speech, Dagny arrives at the studio and sees all the looter leaders, as well as Mowen, “intended to represent an industrial tycoon,” and Stadler, as the voice of science. Stadler has aged tremendously and carries a continuous expression of “contemptuous bitterness.” He has been destroyed by his alternating acceptance
of his betrayal and his attempts to deny it. The people organizing the speech want Stadler and Dagny to be seated on either side of Thompson to show the support of science and industry. Dagny refuses to participate. In the midst of this preparation, the music playing over the airwaves unexpectly goes dead at 7:51 pm, nine minutes before the speech is to begin. Panic and heated comments quickly ensue. Thompson tries to order that the engineer responsible fix the problem or he will lose his job. At 7:58, the engineer tells Thompson that they are unable to get the airwaves to even accept any form of broadcast and that all stations around the country went dead at 7:51 pm. Some special and unknown form of radio wave is blocking all radio broadcasts.
(1009) At exact
ly 8:00 pm, a voice comes over the radio and says, “[Mr. Thompson's] time is up. I have taken over. You were to hear a report on the world crisis. That is what you are going to hear.” The voice is John Galt’s and it is recognized by only three people outside the valley: Dagny, Stadler and Eddie. The television portion of the broadcast is not working becaus Galt has chosen not to be seen. Galt introduces himself and says, “I am the man who loves his life. I am the man who does not sacrifice his love or his values. I am the man who has deprived you of victims and thus has destroyed your world, and if you wish to know why you are perishing…I am the man who will now tell you.”
{The speech is addressed to citizens, who have all a
ccepted the looter philosophy. I will summarize this speech in the first person, from Galt’s perspective. Where his exact words are not quoted, I will be paraphrasing. Page numbers indicate the beginning of the first full paragraph of each page. The tables presented represent my summarization of the concepts presented. Most of the fiery language which is contained within the speech has not been included in order to focus on the logical.}
(1010) You wanted a world where sacrifice was a virtue and I gave it to you. “Since virtue, to you, consists of sacrifice, you have demanded more sacrifices at every successive disaster.” When you hold sacrifice as a virtue, then specific values are degraded while other values are bolstered. The table below demonstrates:
(1010) I have withdrawn the men whom your code attempted to sacrifice, the “implacable enemy…the men of the mind.” I and our group do not recognize any duty to serve you or any other human being. If you say that you need us, we do not recognize that as a reason for serving you or being enslaved to you. “We do not consider need a claim.” You don’t own us. “We are on strike, we, the men of the mind.”
(1010) This strike is different because we are simply granting your demands. You have said that our values – justice, independence, reason, wealth, self-esteem, happiness, and achievement – that all these values are evil. So we will exit. “We have chosen not to
exploit you any longer…We have no demands to present to you, no terms to bargain about…We do not need you.”
(1011) Over the lifetime of man, you have damned everything except your moral code. You say that your moral code is “noble,” and yet man and his “human nature” were “…not good enough to practice it.” What you don’t see is that the problem isn’t man or his human nature; the problem is your moral code. You have been taught “…that morality is a code of behavior imposed upon you by whim…” to serve someone or something else, whether it be a supernatural power, God, society or your neighbor. You have not been taught that the purpose of morality is “…to serve your life or pleasure.” You have been taught that the pursuit of your own desires is evil.
(1011) For centuries, the debate over morality has been over whether it was proper to serve God and the hereafter or to serve your neighbors and the earthly realm. However, both sides of this debate agreed tha
t “…morality demands the surrender of your self-interest and of your mind.” Your mind needed to be sacrificed in order to accept other ‘truths’ based on faith. “Both sides agreed that no rational morality is possible…that in reason there’s no reason to be moral.” {This raises the question, “Why are people moral?” I believe that people are moral because they know that they, as a society, can derive more joy from life being moral than being immoral.}
(1012) The mind is the central element of sustaining life and creating value. “Man’s mind is his basic tool of survival. Life is given to him, survival is not…To remain alive, he must act, and before he can act he must know the nature and purpose of his action.”
(1012) “…To think is an act of choice.” Thinking does not occur naturally like the way a heart works. The connection between thought and choice is called “volitional consciousness…In any hour and issue of your li
fe, you are free to think or to evade that effort. But you are not free to escape from your nature, from the fact that reason is your means of survival.” {Reason and force are the two means of survival, but it is well-established human truth that the use of force for survival renders an individual and its society no different from animals. 5/24/96 – I now don’t agree with this statement. Humans use force to survive. We control our environment through force. We apply force with animals, plants, our environment in order to surivive. We also apply force with other countries in order to live.}
(1012) If we have choice in our thought, then we do not have a programmed set of actions which must be taken in order to live. “Values” are the concepts which guide our actions. “Virtue” is an action which is recognized to be good. “Where there are no alternatives, no values are possible.”
{The chart below illustrates my understanding of
how human values are created. Humans could not develop values without having choice between alternative thoughts and actions. Values are caused by actions. Actions are analyzed, in light of previous actions, and humans then choose to keep or discard their values. Actions also occur based upon a person’s self-control and their lack of ignorance. Self-control is driven by a person’s will-power which is driven by motivation. Lack of ignorance is driven by what a person has been exposed to and their education, and both of these are somewhat impacted by a person’s motivation.}
(1012) “There is only one fundamental alternative in the universe: existence or non-existence – and it pertains to a single class of entities: to living organisms.” For non-living things, “…existence…is unconditional…” In other words, a rock exists and has no choice about this fact. “Matter is indestructible, it changes forms, but it cannot cease to exist. It is only a living organism that faces a constant
:alternative: the issue of life or death.” Life occurs for living organisms only with certain proper actions. “It is only the concept of ‘Life’ that makes the concept of ‘Value’ possible. It is only to a living entity that things can be good or evil.”
(1013) There are three types of living entities:
o Plants only have automatic choice regarding life. A plant “…acts automatically to further its life, it cannot act for its own destruction.”
o Animals also have automatic choice regarding life, as well as some reasoning capabilities. Animals maintain an automatic code of action geared towards their own survival. “…So long as it lives, it acts on its knowledge, with automatic safety and no power of choice, it is unable to ignore its own good, unable to decide to choose evil and act as its own destroyer.”
A o Humans have choice. Therefore, they do not have an “automatic code of survival.” Faced with alternatives, humans decide what action to take based upon “volitional choice.” Humans do not know automatically what is good or evil for them or upon what values their life depends. While humans have a desire for life, they do not possess an instinct to live because this would mean that they would possess an “automatic form of knowledge” of actions required to live. “A desire to live does not give you the knowledge required for living. And even man’s desire to live is not automatic…” The looters of the world hold it as a secret that they really do not seek to live. “Man must obtain his knowledge and choose his actions by a process of thinking, which nature will not force him to perform. Man has the power to act as hi
s own destroyer…” And only man has this power.
{While plants are categorically different from humans and animals, it is my belief that there is no categorical difference between animals and humans, only a difference of degree. The following figure illustrates the differences. First is the matter of choice. Plants have very little choice in their lives. They either fight for life or they die. Animals have more choice and humans have the most. Humans, because of their communication and reasoning abilities, have more time for activities and thoughts other than those directly associated with living. Therefore, humans have more choice in their lives. Second is communication. Plants have very few, if any, means of communicating between themselves or other living beings. Animals are more capable of communication. Humans, of course, have highly intricate systems of communication between humans, as well as between humans and certain animals, notably cats, dogs, parakeets and dolphins. Third is reasonin
g ability. To the best of my ability, plants do not have the ability to reason, they can only act to survive. Animals are capable of rudimentary reasoning abilities, as demonstrated by dogs which can find their way through mazes and other human pets which have shown mastery of certain human tools. Humans possess significantly superior abilities to analyze and synthesize data about a situation. Fourth is the existence of morality. For plants, the only morality in their life is whether or not they live or die. Certainly for many animals this is also the case. Humans, however, have taken their communication and reasoning abilities and created a system of values, a means of categorizing human actions into things which are good (read life-givi
ng) and bad (read death-promoting). The existence of values means taking actions to promote an idea, rather than taking actions simply to survive. A mother bear dying to protect her cubs is not sacrificing; she is acting to protect that which she values. Fifth is the type of group existence. Plants can be found living in groups or alone. Whether or not they exist in groups depends upon the natural environment circumstances. Animals also will live in groups or alone, although they are more likely to exist in groups because their chances of survival are greater. Humans also can exist either in groups or alone. In earlier times, humans were more likely to exist in groups because of the necesseties of survival. However, as humans developed tools to further their survival, they became more capable of living alone. Sixth is the type of group leadership. Plants have no group leadership because of their inability to communicate. Animals are generally led within groups by the one with the greatest force, a
}lthough reason also plays a role in who leads. For human nations, the standard is for the person with superior reason to lead the group. We decry nations where the leader is a despot who leads solely through force. Between human nations, it is a combination of force and reason (although mostly force) which causes certain nations to lead and others to follow. Finally, the issue of what is the greatest good defines the differences between plants, animals and humans. Plants and animals have no greater good than their own survival. Humans, however, have developed different measures of what the “good” is for the group. Communist countries have held that the greatest good is the group. Capitalist countries hold the individual and that individual’s freedom and ability to succeed however they define success as the greatest good.}
(1013) “A living entity that regarded its means
of survival as evil, would not survive…But the history of man has been a struggle to deny and to destroy the mind.” Man’s tool of survival has been his rationality; however, using rationality is a choice. And if he chooses to use it, then he is a “rational being;” if he does not choose to use his rationality, then man is a “suicidal animal.” “Man has to be man – by choice…”
(1013) “A code of values accepted by choice is a code of morality.” If there are any men out there who have any ratonality left, I say to you: “There is a morality of reason, morality proper to man, and Man’s Life is its standard of value.” {This is an important concept which I strongly believe: morality can be defined using reason and life, not anything mystical, as the source.}
(1014) “All that which is proper to the life of a rational being is the good; all that which destroys it is the evil.”
(1014) “Man’s life, as required by his
nature…”, is not the life of force. Instead, it is the life of achievement through reason.
(1014) “Man’s life is the standard of morality, but your own life is its purpose. If existence on earth is your goal, you must choose your actions and values by the standard of that which is proper to man – for the purpose of preserving, fulfilling and enjoying the irreplaceable value which is your life.” If you don’t hold life as your goal, then you are “…acting on the motive and standard of death. Such a being is a metaphysical monstrosity,…capable of nothing but pain.”
(1014) “Happiness is the successful state of life…” Happiness is a state of mind you experience when you achieve your values. Pain is a precursor of death. If the ideal of your morality is being a sacrificial animal, then death is your standard. “By the grace of reality and the nature of life, man – every man – is
an end in himself, he exists for his own sake, and the achievement of his own happiness is his highest moral purpose.”
(1014) You can not achieve life or happiness by just following “irrational whims.” However, you’re free to try anything you want, but you should know that you will be met with frustration, sadness and death with such a course of action. What you must do is pursue “the happiness proper to man.” The way you do this is through your morality, whose purpose is “…to teach you, not to suffer and die, but to enjoy yourself and live.”
(1014) You’ve got to ignore and reject the teachings you have had, especially that man is just an animal. {I believe that man is not ‘just’ an animal. Man is a very specialy type of animal.} Traditional teachers have said that all living species have a “way of survival” required by their nature, except man, whom they say has no special means for surviving. The traditional teachers have said that we need morality in order to protect ourselves from ou
r desire to live selfish, self-preserving lives. These teachings must be discarded. Man’s has a method of survival and it is the work and the judgement of his mind. Man needs morality to protect his life, to preserve himself.
(1015) In order to live, you are not required to think. Thinking is an act of choice. However, “someone had to think to keep you alive.” If you choose not to think, then you are passing that responsibility on to some thinking (and moral) man, “expecting him to sacrifice his good for the sake of letting you survive by your evil.”
(1015) I am telling you everything I told the men who have quit. I told them that the code of their life, for which you have chastised them, is actually a great virtue.
(1015) “We…are on strike in the name of a single axiom: existence exists.” {An axiom is a fundamental truth.} There are two important corollaries to this axiom. First, things which exist are perceived. Second, human beings exist possessing consciousness, the ability to perceive th
ings which exist. Consciousness is only possible when there is some existing thing to perceive. “If that which you claim to perceive does not exist, what you possess is not consciousness.” {When you think about God in this framework, he or she or it simply can not exist. No one has ever perceived God, therefore, God does not exist. If someone were to tell me that God is too big and large a concept for existence, that God is beyond existence, then it is logical that God be put in the same category as the tooth fairy and Santa Claus.}
(1016) A famous philosophyer, {Aristotle}, many centuries ago “…stated the formula defining the concept of existence and the rule of all knowledge: A is A. I am here to tell you the complete mea
ning of his statement: “Existence is Identity, Consciousness is Identification.” Existence is some thing which has identity; consciousness is what allows that thing to have identification.
(1016) The problems of the world have arisen because of “…your leaders’ attempt to evade the fact that A is A. All the secret evil you dread to face within you and all the pain you have ever endured, came from your own attempt to evade the fact that A is A.” {Avoiding Corrolary B is where all problems begin.}
(1016) The task of our senses is to perceive, to give us “evidence of existence” regarding any thing. The task of our reason is to identify, to tell us what that thing is, the result being consciousness of that thing. “All thinking is a process of identification and integration.” We int
egrate through our senses and identify through our reason. A thinking mind continually is asking, “What is it?” The way to establish truth is through logic, and “…logic rests on the axiom that existence exists. Logic is the art of non-contradictory identification.” A rational man can not accept any concept as valid “…unless he integrates it without contradiction into the total sum of his knowledge.” If a person finds a contradiction, then he has made an error in his thinking. If a person finds a contradiction and does nothing about it, that person has given up their mind and they are no longer a part of reality.
(1017) “Reality is that which exists…Truth is the recognition of reality; reason, man’s only means of knowledge, is his only standard of truth.” The only reason which is important is your own. The process of identification depends upon thinking, judgement and moral integrity. I
t has been said that morality is not related to reason, but this is wrong. It takes a reasoning mind to make the constant choices between right and wrong: Should a seed be planted in order to grow? Should a wound be disinfected to save a life? The answers to questions like these only comes from “…a man’s mind, a mind of intransigent devotion to that which is right.”
(1017) “A rational process is a moral process…If devotion to truth is the hallmark of morality, then there is no greater, nobler, more heroic form of devotion than the act of a man who assumes the responsibility of thinking.”
(1017) “That which you call your soul or spirit is your consciousness, and that which you call ‘free will’ is your mind’s freedom to think or not…”
(1017) “Thinking is man’s only basic virtue…And his basic vice, the source of all his evils, is…the willful suspension of one’s consciousness, the refu
sal to think…not ignorance, but the refusal to know.” When you unfocus your mind and attempt to “…escape the responsibility of your judgement…”, you are committing an evil act. You may think that a thing will not exist if you refuse to identify it, but you are wrong. When you do not think, you are denying your own existence, you are denying your own life.
(1018) In every waking moment of every man’s life, he is faced with a “basic moral choice:” to think or not to think, to exist or not to exist, to live or to die.
(1018) It is wrong to say that morality is simply needed because man lives in a society and that morality would not be needed on a desert island. Morality would be most needed on a desert island, where a man would be required to use his rational mind to make decisions in order to live. {This explains and addresses why I have always felt pride in my ability to successfully negotiate myself through wilderness experiences.}
(1018) One might argue for a moral commandm
ent like, “Thou shalt think.” However, morality can not be forced, because whatever is moral has been determined through reason and the reasoning powers of a mind can not be forced.
(1018) “My morality, the morality of reason, is contained in a single axiom: existence exists – and in a single choice: to live.” In order to live, man must hold three values as “supreme:”
1) Reason, the “…only tool of knowledge…”
2) Purpose, the particular happiness his reason is to serve
3) Self-esteem, the “inviolate certainty that his mind is competent to think and his person is worthy of happiness…worth of living.”
(1018) To hold these values supreme, man must live his life in support of the following virtues: “…rationality, independence, integrity, honesty, justice, productiveness, pride.”
(1018) “Rationality is the recognition of the fact that existence exists…that the mind is one’s only judge of values and one’s only guide of action – that reason is an absolute that permits no comp
romise…that the alleged short-cut to knowledge, which is faith, is only a short circuit destroying the mind…”
(1019) “Independence is the recognition of the fact that…” you have a responsibility to make judgements and that no one else can do your thinking.
(1019) “Integrity is the recognition of the fact that you cannot fake your consciousness, just as honesty is the recognition of the fact that you cannot fake existence…” A man cannot allow contradiction “…between action and thought, between his life and his convictions…” A man who has integrity must also have courage and confidence. “Courage is the practical form of being true to existence, of being true to truth, and confidence is the practical form of being true to one’s own consciousness.”
(1019) “Honesty is the recognition of the fact that the the unreal is unreal and can have no value…”…that anything gained through the deception of your self or others has no value…”that honesty is not a social duty, not a sacrifice for the sa
ke of others, but the most profoundly selfish virtue man can practice: his refusal to sacrifice the reality of his own existence to the deluded consciousness of others.”
(1019) “Justice is the recognition of the fact that you cannot fake the character of men as you cannot fake the character of your nature…” Men should be judged by what they are and nothing else. Your moral appraisal of other men should be withheld as preciously as you would withhold money from a financial investment. It is wrong to not be contemptuous of men’s vices, just as it is wrong to withhold your admiration from men’s virtues. That which is good in the world can only lose if you improperly judge or abdicate your judgement of other men’s morality. The worst thing that could happen to society would be if men were punished for their virtues and rewarded for their vices.
(1020) “Productiveness is your acceptance of morality, your recognition of the fact that you choose to live – that productive work is the process by wh
ich man’s consciousness controls his existence, a constant process of acquiring knowledge and shaping matter to fit one’s purpose…of remaking the earth in the image of one’s values – that all work is creative work if done by a thinking mind…” You choose the type of work that you do. It is wrong “…to cheat your way into a job bigger than your mind can handle…” Likewise, it is wrong “…to settle down into a job that requires less than your mind’s full capacity…your work is the process of achieving your values…your work is the purpose of your life…your body is a machine, but your mind is its driver, and you must drive as far as your mind will take you, with achievement as the goal of your road…” Don’t accept leadership without thinking. Likewise, don’t ever accept another person’s following if you are their only goal. “…any value you might find outside your work, any other loyalty or love, can be only travelers you choose to share your journey and must be traveler
s going on their own power in the same direction.”
(1020) “Pride is the recognition of the fact that you are your own highest value and, like all of man’s values, it has to be earned – that of any achievements open to you, the one that makes all others possible is the creation of your own character…that as man is a being of self-made wealth, so he is a being of self-made soul – that to live requires a sense of self-value, but man, who has no automatic values, has no automatic sense of self-esteem and must earn it by shaping his soul in the image of his moral ideal…that the first precondition of self-esteem is that radiant selfishness of soul which desires the best in all things, in values of matter and spirit, a soul that seeks above all else to achieve its own moral perfection, valuing nothing higher than itself…” You will know you have achieved self-esteem when you rebel against the notion of being “sacrificial animal” in any way, shape or form.
(1021) I, John Galt, am unashamed of saying, “I am pr
oud of my own value and of the fact that I wish to live.” The path to happiness goes through these steps: Virtuous acts lead to life and a virtuous life leads to happiness.
(1021) “Just as your body has two fundamental sensations, pleasure and pain…so your consciousness has two fundamental emotions, joy and suffering…” Your sensations and your consciousness share a similar root, which is life and death. You don’t have any choice about whether or not you will feel, but you have considerable choice ab
out what your values, what you think is good or bad. Your values are what determines your emotions and how you feel. If you choose contradictory values, you will end up confused. “If you hold the irrational as your standard of value…if you long for rewards you have not earned…if you desire the opposite of existence – you will reach it.” Don’t cry when you get to the opposite of existence and find out that “…life is frustration and that happiness is impossible to man…” It was your moral code that got you where you ended up. {I am completely indignant that our government supports lotteries and sells them with advertisements promoting a something for nothing mentality. This activity is nothing short of the self-destruction of our selves.}
(1022) Happin
ess is not just satisfying your “emotional whims.” “Happiness is a state of non-contradictory joy – a joy without penalty or guilt, a joy that does not clash with any of your values…” Happiness comes from “…using your mind’s fullest power…achieving values that are real…” Happiness comes from being a “producer.” “Happiness is possible only to the rational man…”
(1022) Other people can not give you your happiness; you must earn it yourself. You can not become happy by making other people sacrifice for you; you must earn your own way.
(1022) “…The moral symbol of respect for human beings, is the trader…A trader is a man who earns what he gets and does not give or take the undeserved. A trader does not ask to be paid for his failures, nor does he ask to be
loved for his flaws.” Just as in the material realm a trader requires material payment for material efforts, so in the realm of the soul, a trader “…does not give the values of his spirit – his love, his friendship, his esteem – except in payment and in trade for human virtues, in payment for his own selfish pleasure, which he receives from men he can respect.”
(1022) I do not recognize any moral obligation to society or “my fellow men.” The only obligation I recognize is the one “…I owe to myself, to material objects and to all of existence: rationality…I seek or desire nothing from [other men] except such relations as they care to enter of their own voluntary choice…I win by means of nothing but logic and I surrender to nothing but logic…When I disagree with a rational man, I let reality be our final arbiter; if I am right, he will learn; if I am wrong, I will [learn]; one of us will win, but both will profit.
(1023) The one unforgiveable act a man may commit against another man, “
so long as men desire to live together” is to start or initiate “the use of physical force against others.” When force is used to threaten the link between a man and his perception of reality, the initiator of the force “…is a killer acting on the premise of death in a manner wider than murder: the premise of destroying man’s capacity to live.”
(1023) Force and the mind are at opposite ends of a spectrum. “…Morality ends where a gun begins.” “There can be no ‘right’ to destroy…the mind,” because the mind is “…the source of rights, the only means of judging right and wrong…” Reality requires man to use his rational capability in order live. When you threaten a man with force, that man faces death if he continues to use his mind, the thing which has given him all that is good in life.
(1023) Using force on other people’s minds and allowing your own mind to be forced are both contemptible actions.
(1024) If anyone ever attempts to use force on me, I will not grant that person “the term
s of reason.” Moreover, I will respond to that man who uses force on me with my own force. I justify and know I am right in this action because “…He uses force to seize a value; I use it only to destroy destruction.”
(1024) We, the producers, will no longer be a part of your society until you put down your guns, your weapons of influence by force. “If you desire ever again to live in an industrial society, it will be on our moral terms.”
(1024) “You who are the worshippers of the zero – you have never discovered that achieving life is not the equivalent of avoiding death. Joy is not ‘the absence of pain,’ intelligence is not ‘the absence of stupidity,’ light is not ‘the absence of darkness,’ an entity is not ‘the absence of a nonentity.’” We will no longer produce for you in exchange for your sparing of our destruction. “Existence is not a negation of negatives. Evil, not value, is an absence and a negation, evil is impotent and has no power but that which we let it extort from us.”
(1024) You
do not understand that seeking to avoid certain things is not the same as seeking to achieve. “You seek escape from pain. We seek the achievement of happiness. You exist for the sake of avoiding punishment. We exist for the sake of earning rewards.”
(1024) You say that “…fear and joy are incentives of equal power…,” but you know you don’t believe that. You don’t want to think and you don’t want to name what it is that you are and have become, but I will name the core of your existence: “the Morality of Death.”
(1025) If you would just stand still and naked, you would see exactly what your moral code is. “Your code begins by damning man as evil, then demands that he practice a good which it defines as impossible for him to practice…It demands that he start, not with a standard of value, but with a standard of evil, which is himself.” The good is then determined to be everything that man is not. Once again, you hold the absence of something as something.
(1025) “The name of this monstrous absu
rdity is Orginal Sin.” It is a contradiction in terms and an impossibility. Logic says “…that which is ouside the possibility of choice is outside the province of morality.” If man is evil by birth, then he has no ability to change the situation and thus, he is neither good nor evil. Man is nothing but a robot. {There can be no morality if a human doesn’t have a choice between right and wrong behavior.}
(1025) “Do not hide behind the cowardly evasion that man is born with free will, but with
a ‘tendency’ to evil…If the tendency is of his choice, he cannot possess it at birth; if it is not his choice, his will is not free.”
(1026) The myth of this philosophy is that man and woman were in a perfect state, until man “…ate the fruit of the tree of knowledge – he acquired a mind and became a rational being.” This philosophy attempts to make man feel guilty, not for his vices, but for his reasoning mind, “…the essence of his nature as man.” Man fell from grace because he learned the difference between good and evil, because he acquired morality. Thus man is evil because he’s a man and guilty because he’s alive. And this is called “…a morality of mercy and a doctrine of love for man.”
(1026) This philosophy goes on to say that man really isn’t ev
eil; it’s only his body which is evil. His soul is what is to be saved. This sets man against himself, body against soul or body against consciousness, “…his soul belongs to a supernatural realm, but his body is in an evil prison holding it in bondage on this earth…” The only ultimate good is to defeat one’s body and make “…that glorious jail-break which leads into the freedom of the grave.” This philosophy makes men into one of two things: a corpse, which is a body without a soul, or a ghost, which is a soul without a body. A man without his mind is like “…a body moved by unnacountable instincts and a soul moved by mystic revelations…”
(1027) The teachers of this philosophy tell man that there will be no “fulfillment on earth” and that if he was truely conscious then he could perceive that which is non-existent. They say that if man cannot
perceive the non-existent, then his lack of perception is proof of his evil and the impotence of his consciousness.
(1027) This philosophy can be called the “Morality of Death” and it has two types of teachers: the spiritualists and the materialists. {The tenets of the Morality of Death are outlined below, along with the tenets of morality of reason. The tenets of the morality of reason were not spelled out this clearly in Galt’s dialogue.}
(1027) If those who are listening have any shred of reason left, “.
..use it now. The word that has destroyed you is ’sacrifice.’” What does sacrifice mean? ‘Sacrifice’ doesn’t mean rejecting that which is evil or that which is worthless. ‘Sacrifice’ means rejecting that which is good or that which has value…and surrender yourself to that which is evil or does not have value. “If you achieve the career you wanted, after years of struggle, it is not a sacrifice; if you then renounce it for the sake of a rival, it is…A sacrifice is the surrender of a value. Full sacrifice is full surrender of all values.” If you want to achieve “full virtue” under the philosophy of sacrifice, you must get absolutely nothing for whatever it is that you surrender. If you want to achieve “moral perfection” under the philosophy of sacrifice, you must go through life without joy, profit or any self-based reward. Under this philosophy, “moral perfection” is impossible to achieve. Instead, “…the value of your life and of your person is gauged by how closely you
succeed in approaching that ideal zero which is death.”
(1028) What is truly evil about the code of sacrifice is that if you don’t value the things you are sacrificing, then you really haven’t sacrificed. “It is not a sacrifice to give your life for others, if death is your personal desire. To achieve the virtue of sacrifice, you must want to live, you must love it, you must burn with passion for this earth and for all the splendor it can give you…It is not mere death that the morality of sacrifice holds out to you as an ideal, but death by slow torture.”
(1029) If you want to save whatever dignity you have remaining, do not call your actions a sacrifice, because that would be immoral. If a mother buys milk for her child instead of buying herself a hat, that is not a sacrifice, unless the mother truly values a hat more than the nourishment of her child. Such a mother would be morally repugnant because she feeds her child only from a sense of duty.
(1029) “The creed of sacrifice is a morality for the
immoral…” A soldier who jumps on a grenade to spare the lives of his comrades values the unit more than his own. This is not a sacrifice; it is a choice. It also does not make him a better human being, because he has given of himself for others. If he doesn’t believe that his comrades lives were a higher value, then he either a) has been twisted into believing that only through death will he achieve goodness or b) he places no value on his life. “Sacrifice could be proper only for those who have nothing to sacrifice – no values, no standards, no judgement – those whose desires are irrational whims, blindly conceived and lightly surrendered.”
(1029) Do not try to say that sacrifice applies only to material matters and not to your values.
This is like trying “…to divorce your values from matter.” Your values are exemplified by your material actions. A person who says that their ideals and actions need not relate is a “cheap little hypocrite.” A person can be split apart so that one part is bad and the other is goo
d. “Renounce your consciousness and you become a brute. Renounce your body and you become a fake. Renounce the material world and you surrender it to evil.”
(1030) The goal of your morality is to “…give to that which you do not enjoy, serve that which you do not admire, submit to that which you consider evil…It is your mind that they want you to surrender…” Those who start by telling you not to pursue your selfish wishes end up telling you not to pursue your selfish conviction. However, human rationality and human perception allow for only one kind of wish and one kind of conviction: a selfish conviction, the one that emanates from your own mind.
(1030) “This much is true: the most selfish of all things is the independent mind that recognizes no authority higher than its own and no value higher than its judgement of truth.” The powers in charge are asking you to sacrifice your intelligence, reason and standard of truth in order to serve the “greatest good for the greatest number.”
And what is this ‘good?’ It is whatever those in power want it to be, including the sacrifice of your life for the greater good or the extermination of other people’s lives for that same greater good. “Your standard of virtue is not an object, not an act, not a principle, but an intention…Your only definition of the good is a negation: the good is the ‘non-good for me.’”
(1030) “Your code…hands out, as its version of the absolute, the following rule of moral conduct: If you wish it, it’s evil; if others wish it, it’s good…” This morality splits the world into two groups: “…one is you, the other is all the rest of humanity. You are the only servant, the rest are the masters, you are the only giver, the rest are takers…You must not question their right to your sacrifice, or the nature of their wishes and their needs; their right is conferred upon them by a negative, by the fact that they are ‘non-you.’”
(1031) By your moral code, in order to be happy, “…you must serve the happiness of others…” If you can’t find happiness in giving yourself to others, then you must be evil. If you were good, you would take pleasure in serving others.
(1031) You know that you are confused by your moral code, but you refuse to fully question it and so you “…flounder between guilty cheating and grudgingly practicing a principle too vicious to name.”
(1031) I will ask you all the questions which you have evaded. “Why is it moral to serve the happiness of others, but not your own?…Why is it immoral for you to desire, but moral for others to do so? Why is it immoral to produce a value and keep it, but moral to give it away? And if it not moral for you to keep a value, why is it moral for others to accept it?” The “monstrous answer” provided by your moral code is that it is moral for takers to receive something of value and even to enjoy it, “…provided they do not obtain it by right..” Th
is is “…the secret core of your creed, the other half of your double standard: it is immoral to live by your own effort, but moral to live by the effort of others…it is evil to profit by achievement, but good to profit by sacrifice.”
(1032) Your code divides the world into two groups: those who want something and those who want nothing. The standard which determines in what you group you belong is “lack of value.” If you need something that your ability is able to satisfy, then you have no claim on anyone else. However, if you need something that your ability cannot satisfy, then your code gives you a claim upon the rest of humanity. The result of this is that if you fail, if your needs are greater than your ability, then your pain and suffering is like a club that you hold over the heads of all those who have succeeeded. If you fail, then you become the master over those who have succeeded.
(1032) By your code, if you gain money or love or food because of your virtue, that is not a “moral acquis
ition.” Instead, it is simply a payment that you have made to acquire something. In your code, being deserving of something is not a moral event; it’s simply a commercial, selfish, mutually profitable event between two parties. Only when you are undeserving does an event becomes moral. “To demand rewards for your virtue is selfish and immoral; it is your lack of virtue that transforms your demand into a moral right.” Your morality says that need, the absence of value, is the standard by which you may ma
ke a claim upon others. And how do you pay for all the claims that people have made? You simply choose those who are most selfish, most evil, the men who are furthest away from your ideal man, the man who does not live for himself and gives everything away to others.
(1033) “When need is the standard, every man is both victim and parasite…He cannot appraoch his fellow man except in one of two disgraceful roles: he is both a beggar and a sucker.” A man becomes a victim or sucker because he must serve the needs of others. The same man becomes a parasite or beggar because the only way to fill his need is to show others his need. The results are a split of your being: You begin to feel guilty about the man who has less
8 than you and frustrated that he makes claims on you. You also feel hate towards the man who has more than you and resentful that he doesn’t give your entitlement. You don’t know what pleasure in life is rightfully yours and what sort of a debt you have unpaid to others. The end result is that you are guilty forever, because “…there is no mouthful of food you swallow that is not needed by someone somewhere on earth…”
(1033) Your code tells you that you should sacrifice for others out of your love and that you should love every man. However, the fact is
that emotions and wealth do not occur without cause. “An emotion is a response to a fact of reality, an estimate dictated by your standards. To love is to value. Any person who tells you that it is possible “…to love those whom you appraise as worthless, is the man who tells you that it is possible to grow rich by consuming without producing and that paper money is as valuable as gold.” {Rand was beyond her realm as a philosophyer in advocating a return to a gold standard.}
(1033) Observe the contradiction of your code. You leaders do not expect you to feel a causeless fear. You are constantly faced with issues where the source of the fear is made explicitly clear. Violate this law and you will be met with this punishment. But when the subject is love, the expectation of society is that you will love without cause. If someone feels fear without reason, he would be expected to see a psychiatrist; if someone feels love without reason, he is glorified and held as a role model.
(1034) The
truth is that love is an expression of all of a person’s values. It should be given as carefully as one gives any thing of value to others. It is received as “…the greatest reward you can earn for the moral qualities you have achieved in your character and person.”
(1034) Your morality has a very different idea of love. You are told to give your love freely, and that your love becomes greater when you give it to someone of more depravity. “To love a man for his virtues is paltry and human…; to love him for his flaws is divine. To love those who are worthy of it is self-interest; to love the unworthy is sacrifice…the more loathsome the object, the nobler your love…” And when you love everything on “equal terms,” then “…you have achieved the state of moral perfection.”
(1034) You have reached your goal and now you complain that man is impotent. But the reason is clear: you can not “…prosper by seeking destruction…find joy by worshipping pain…live by holding death as your standa
rd of value…”
(1034) You think that your leaders are noble and more virtuous than you. And then you damn yourself and don’t question their motives and their goals. Look at the situation clearly and see “…how small an enemy has claimed your life.” Your leaders count on one fact to lead you: “your fear of relying on your mind.” They say that they possess a higher or greater type of knowledge. The leaders of the spiritual, mystical, religious world say that they are somehow closer to God, that they have a sixth sense that you do not have. Meanwhile, the leaders of the materialist, muscle world simply say that they know better than you. Both of these leadership groups demand that you “…invalidate your own consciousness and surrender yourself into their power.”
(1035) Both of these groups of leaders say that they “…perceive a mode of being superior to your existence on this earth.” And “…what identity are they able to give to their superior realm?” All they can tell you is what their realm is
w not: for the spiritualists, their realm is of God and heaven, which is only a realm not of man and earth; for the materialists, their realm is of the future, which is not the present. Both groups are are attempting to prove something to you with a negative. “Their definitions are not acts of defining, but of wiping-out.”
(1035) The truth is that it takes an incre
dible amount of virtue, “intelligence, integrity, energy, skill,” to make a railroad which will carry people just a mile on the earth. Your mystical leaders “…travel from planet to planet at the cost of a wish.” And if someone asks how, they give you a “righteous scorn” and say that “…’how’ is the concept of the vulgar realists; the concept of superior spirits is ‘Somehow.’”
(1036) Your leaders “…seek to escape the law of identity.” They think that somehow they can evade the fact that A is A. The fact is that “…a river will not bring them milk, no matter what their hunger…” Moreover, “…their feelings are impotent to alter the course of a single speck of dust in space…”
(1036) The things in this world are things perceived
by your mind; if you don’t use your mind to perceive, then you are simply making perceptions based upon your wishes.
(1036) If you accept any part of your leaders’ creed, “…your motive is to get away with something your reason would not permit you to attempt.” You can not escape from the identity which is what you are, no matter how hard you wish. If you commit evil acts, then that is a truth and you can’t wish it away. It doesn’t matter how forcefully you say your goal in accepting their creed is “a higher mode of life,” any time that you wish for something that goes against identification, you are also wishing for non-existence.
(1036) Your teachers have attempted to reverse the rules of causality in your consciousness. They say that emotions come first, and that emotions are used by your mind to perceive reality. The truth is the opposite: your mind perceives reality and emotions are the result. “They want to cheat the axiom of existence and consciousness, they want th
eir consciousness to be an instrument not of perceiving but of creating existence, and existence to be not the object but the subject of their consciousness…” They are hoping to gain power and control over existence by substituting their philosophy for the facts of existence; “…instead, they lose the power of their consciousness.” {I wonder about this. People exist who are optimists and pessimists. Same situation, different outlook. Is a pessimist someone who doesn’t believe in the heroic nature of man?}
(1037) Whatever irrationality has drawn you to their creed is simply the rotten part of your mind. “An emotion that clashes with your reason, an emotion that you cannot explain or control, is only the carcass of that stale thinking which you forbade your mind to revise.”
(1037) Whenever you refuse to think and see the truthful nature of reality that you know in your mind, to say that you didn’t really steal the cookies, then you are “subverting your consciousness” and “corrupting yo
ur mind.” You are left with a “splintered” or “censored” reality held together by links which are unexplainable and illogical. You seek to avoid recognizing these links, but that is impossible because of “the law of causality.” The law of causality is “the law of identity applied to action. All actions are caused by entities. The nature of an action is caused and determined by the nature of the entities that act; a thing cannot act in contradiction to its nature.”
(1037) You who are seeking to defeat the law of causality are attempting to say that you can eat your cake before you bake it. You say that if you just wish for a cake, or if you just need it badly enough, then you will get it because your claim is equal or better than anyone else’s claim for that cake.
(1038) Your rebellion against the law of causality is not just an attempt to escape, it is an attempt to prove the the reverseof the law of causality:
You want You hope it will give you
admiration virtue
wealth ability
love personal value
sexual desires philosophical values
You want to be admired and hope that that admiration will make you virtuous. You want wealth and hope that that wealth will give you ability. You want love and hope that that love will give you personal value. You want sexual desires and think that they will give you philosophical values.
(1038) Who pays for all of your desires to gain what is truly an effect from nothing more than your wish? We, the men of the mind, are whom you have asked to pay. “We are the cause of all the values that you covet, we who perform the process of thinking, which is the process of defining identity and discovering causal connections. We taught you to know, to speak, to produce, to desire, to love.” You would not be able to desire or to have clothes, automobiles, money or any means of exchanging goods if not for the men of the mind, the men who “…preserve their capacity to think, to choose, to value.” You want to have al
l the benefits of our efforts and our thought, but you want to take away that which is our core. “…It is our wealth that you use while destroying us, it is our values that you use while damning us…”
(1038) The mystics of the spirit have ruled the world for centuries by “…declaring production and joy to be sins, then collecting blackmail from the sinners.” The greatest victims over time have been all the men of the mind, who bore damnation for their reason and went on using their reason and producing for the benefit of others. {Why do so many people not find joy in their work? Because for many centuries man has been taught that productive activity should be drudgery and toil. Man has been taught that if you earn your way through life and achieve success, then you must have been selfish and you should feel guilty about that.}
(1039) Today, producers are not called sinners. Instead, they are not acknowledged, but are expected to continue producing, to continue running railroads and st
eel mills. Your leaders are living on false logic and “stolen concepts in mind.” Their goal is “…not to build, but to take over industrial plants…not to think, but to take over human thinking.” They think that all you have to do to run a factory is be able to turn a knob, but they don’t ask, they blank out, the question of who created the factory in the first place. They say that entities don’t exist, that only motion exists, but they “…blank out the fact that motion presupposes the thing which moves, that without the concept of entity, there can be no such concept as ‘motion.’”
(1039) Your leaders say that you can’t prove your existence or your consciousness, but they blank out the fact that use of the word ‘prove’ presuppo
ses and assumes the existence of existence, consciousness and knowledge:
1) Existence is something which is knowable.
2) Consciousness is the human ability to know about existence.
3) Knowledge is what is learned and allows humans to distinguish between what has been proved and unproved.
(1040) If someone asks you to prove your existence, he is asking you to step outside of existence to make that proof. Existence exists is an axiom. If you say you don’t accept that axiom, you have already contradicted yourself because you have said something heard by someone else and this proves your existence. Your only logical choice if you don’t accept the axiom that existence exists is to die. Then your existence will no longer exist.
(1040) An axiom is a statement which is at the root of all knowledge a human possesses. Moreover, an axiom proves itself by forcing all those who attempt to disprove that axiom to accept it as a part of their proof. Let any man “…who does not choose to accept the axi
om of identity, try to present his theory without using the concept of identity or any concept derived from it…” Your leaders are attempting to take you back to an age worse than any that humanity has known, an age in which you are deprived of “the concept of an objective reality.”
(1040) A human baby does not really become a human being until the day when it understands that the things that its senses are perceiving are not mystical, but that they are real and that they are knowable by his mind. “We are the men who reach that day; you are the men who choose to reach it partly; a savage is a man who never does.” {I would add that a rational human being may not understand everything that he perceives, but he knows that all those things are knowable. A rational man may not understand exactly how a car works, but he knows that that information is knowable.}
(1041) For the savage, the world is a place which not simply unknown, it is unknowable. The physical objects around him are mysterious and unpredictable. He views himself as helpless and “at the mercy of forces beyond his control.” For the savage, “…nature is ruled by demons who possess an omnipotent power…where they can turn his bowl of meal into a snake and his wife into a beetle at any moment…He can count on nothing, he can only wish, and he spends his life on wishing, on begging his demons to grant him his wishes by the arbitrary power of their will…” The intellectual state of this savage is what today’s teachers are hoping to deliver to our world.
(1042) If you question how this is happening, just walk into any college classroom and observe. You will hear teachers telling students that man is “…incapable of knowing an objective reality…There is no knowledge, they teach, there’s only faith…your belief that you exist is an act of faith, no more valid than another’s faith in his right to kill you…reality is whatever people choose to say it is, there are no objective f
acts, there are only people’s arbitrary wishes…”
(1042) The mystics of the spirit have always said that faith is superior to reason, but they never “dared deny the existence of reason.” Now the mystics of muscle, those who would say that your duty is to Society, are telling you that “everything is faith.” They have revolted against knowledge and science and the enslavement of the mind by saying that none of these things exist: that there is no knowledge, no science and no mind.
(1042) Once you give up your power to perceive and accept their assessment of the collective good as opposed to your perception of the objective reality, then your teachers are your rulers. And when you finally rebel against their teachings, they will tell you that you, one person, can not truly know what is or what is not.
(1043) If you doubt that this is their purpose, look at the words which the mystics of muscle are using to describe reality. Every time there is a reference to something which has occurred because of the m
ind or reason, they “blank-out.” They do not want you to worry about how all the products of value have been created in our society. They’ll just tell you that they got here somehow and, as far as a specific cause, well, “…nothing has causes.”
(1043) “They proclaim that every man born is entitled to exist without labor and…is entitled to receive his ‘minimum sustenance’ – his food, his clothes, his shelter – with no effort on his part, as his due and his birthright.” Ask your leaders from whom all this will be r
eceived and you will get no answer. Today’s thinkers want to discard all the past philosophers and say that because we now know that man is an irrational being, we will establish a system of politics which will make it possible for those irrational beings to exist and remain irrational. When you ask who will make such a system possible, you get no answer.
(1043) These mystical professors have the audacity to attempt to explain that there is very little difference between “a jungle village and New York City” and that the unifying thread between the two is simply that “…man is an animal who possesses an ‘instinct of tool-making.’”
(1044) You are now seeing the climax of your creed. Both categories of mystics are now fighting “…for power to rule y
ou…” They say that love will solve the problems of your spirit and that a whip will solve the problems of your body. It is well recognized that “…a tortured elephant will trample its torturer,” and yet they expect you to keep on working for them.
(1044) Over time the nature of the mystics has changed, from “…the jungle witch-doctors…to the supernatural doctrines of the Middle Ages…to the smiling little professors…” However, all these mystics have always had just one purpose: “…to undercut your consciousness…” And they have always had just one true lust: to have “…the power to rule you by force…”
(1044) However, none of this can happen “…without your consent.” When a mystical leader speaks to you and your conscious mind does not agree but you decide that it is “…safer to trust his superior certainty…”, then you have given him your sanction and you des
erve what you end up getting. The power that the mystical leaders dread the most is the power of your conscious mind.
(1044) “A mystic is a man who surrendered his mind at its first encounter with the minds of others.” When the mystics were young, they too, like you, found a contradiction between reality and what others were telling them. “At the crossroads of the choice between ‘I know’ and ‘They say,’ he chose the authority of others, he chose to submit rather than to understand, to believe rather than to think. Faith in the supernatural begins as faith in the superiority of others.” These new mystics believed that the power of thinking of others was better than theirs. And so the reasoning capabilities of these new mystics was rendered useless and all they were left with was their feelings.
(1045) When the mystics say that they feel the existence of a supernatural power, they mean that they can feel that you carry that belief of a supernatural
power in your consciousness. “A mystic is driven by the urge to impress, to cheat, to flatter, to deceive, to force that omnipotent consciousness of others.” The people whose consciousness the mystic is attempting to control are “…his only key to reality…his only means of perception…” He depends upon you, who buy his irrational creed, to validate his existence. “To control the consciousness of others becomes his only passion…”
(1045) The mystics want your obedience. They do not want your agreement because agreement stems from your mind. They want you to surrender your consciousness to their assertions and their edicts. They want deal with you by means of faith and force, not facts and reason. To the mystic, “…reason…is a means of deception…” The mystics abdicated their reasoning capabilities long ago and they believe that somewhere there is a greater power than reason. The mystic craves to have a following and only your “…forced obedienc
e can give a sense of security…His lust is to command, not to convince…What he seeks is power over reality and over men’s means of perceiving it…” They want you to fake reality in the hopes that somehow reality can be re-created in their image.
(1046) The mystics have a longing for “infinity” and “non-identity” which can only be fulfilled by one state: death. They want the hereafter more than the present. This is a rejection of reality and “…whoever rejects reality rejects existence…” To reject existence means that you hate the values and good things which give life and you love the evils the destroy life. A mystic takes pleasure in the suffering and terror experience by man because it is evidence to him that the “rational reality” of the world is defeated, that the world is not a good place and, therefore, somehow, the hereafter must be a better world.
(1046) Death and destruction are the only true ideals for the mystics. If they haven’t questi
oned their doctrine, it’s because the truth about their own souls is worse than the excuse which you have allowed them: “…that the horrors they practice are means to nobler ends. The truth is that those horrors are their ends.”
(1046) Don’t delude yourself into thinking that you can satisfy these mystics. If you give a little, they will want more. What they really want is “…your life, as slowly or as fast as you are willing to give it in…” And what he’s really doing is feeding his mind with your death; what he really wants is his own death, but he has refused to acknowledge this and so he substitutes your death for his. And all of this comes from the delusion that death is salvation.
(1046) Some of you may think that these mystics engage in all of this simply to acquire more material goods. It is true that they receive considerable material wealth from their position, but their goal is “…not enjoyment, it is escape. They do not want to own your fortune, they want you to lose it;…th
ey desire nothing, they hate existence, and they keep running, each trying not to learn that the object of his hatred is himself.”
(1046) These mystics are “…the essence of evil…” They are seeking “…to fill the selfless zero of their soul…by devouring the world…Theirs is a conspiracy against the mind, which means: against life and man.”
(1047) This conspiracy has no particular leader and no particular direction, but it continues growing by every person who carries hatred “…for reason, for logic, for ability, for achievement, for joy…” It has grown by every person “…who ever preached the superiority of the ‘heart’ over the mind.”
(1047) This conspiracy is moved by all those individuals are trying to get away with things and cut corners around reality. It is united by all those individuals who “…pursue a zero as a value…” Professors, businessmen, neurotics, incompetents…any individual “…who takes pleasure in defeating achievement…” is a part of the destruction of our society.
…Death is the goal of their actions in practice – and you are the last of their victims.”
(1047) We are the men who were the “buffers” between you and “the nature of your creed.” But we have withdrawn because we will no longer allow ourselves to be the fuel for the machine which continues your existence.
(1047) Twelve years ago, when I worked in the world, I was an inventor, “…a man who asks ‘Why?’ of the universe and lets nothing stand between the answer and his mind.” As a product of my research, I discove
red a source of unlimited energy and I built an experimental model motor. I would have made a fortune and I would have increased the productivity of every human being. Then one night, at a factory meeting, I was told that all my achievements and my thoughts were their property, “…that my right to exist was conditional and depended on the satisfaction of their desires. The purpose of my abilities, they said, was to serve the needs of those who were less able.” And it was that evening that I saw everything that was wrong with the world. “I saw that the enemy was an inverted morality – and that my sanction was its only power.” I saw that this evil morality is actually impotent and that its survival depends upon the willingness of those who are good to serv
e those who are evil. And I also saw how over many centuries, it has always been “…the good, the able, the men of reason, who act as their own destroyers…” It has always been the good who let their virtues work on behalf of those who are evil and those who are evil slowly destroy those who are good. I knew right then what I needed to do. I quit the factory as well as the world. I made it my mission to warn the victims of your creed and to show them how, by simply withholding their consent, by expecting justice, they could fight you.
(1048) “If you want to know what you lost when…” we, the men of the mind, quit your world, just think about how you would survive if you were left in a land where no man had been before. With no one to teach you, think about whether you would not only survive, but prosper. Think about whether your brains could cause the actions necessary to “…t
ill the soil and grow your food…to invent a wheel, a lever, an induction coil, a generator, an electronic tube – then decide whether men of ability are exploiters who live by the fruit of your labor and rob you of the wealth that you produce, and whether you dare to believe that you possess the power to enslave them.” And if you think that living as a savage would not be so bad, “…let your women take a look at a jungle female with her shriveled face and pendulous breasts, as she sits grinding her meal in a bowl, hour after hour, century by century…”
(1049) Those of you mystics who claim that a machine is not the product of human thought, but instead of a mystical power, “…have never discovered the industrial age.” Before the industrial age, slavery was the norm, and you mystics have always wanted slaves. “When you clamor for public ownership of the means of production, you are clamoring for public ownership of the mind.”
(1049) You, the mystics,
cannot “…harness the forces of inanimate matter, yet [you] propose to harness the minds of men who are able to achieve the feats you cannot equal. You proclaim that you cannot survive without us, yet propose to dictate the terms of our survival.” You, the mystics, can’t run your own life, can’t survive on power of your intelligence, can’t exist in freedom…and yet, you propose to run the lives of others, to be the “omnipotent ruler” over those who are more able to survive and prosper.
(1050) You, the mystics, worship impotence. When you witness any depravity, you cry “It’s only human.” You seek “…to make the concept ‘human’ mean the weakling, the fool, the rotter, the liar, the failure, the coward, the fraud…” And while you degrade the meaning of ‘human,’ you make no effort to uplift what is human by showing reverence for “…the hero, the thinker, the producer, the inventor, the strong, the purposeful, the pure…” This situation is “…as if ‘to feel’ were human, but to
think were not, as if to fail were human, but to succeed were not, as if corruption were human, but virtue were not – as if the premise of death were proper to man, but the premise of life were not.”
(1050) “You praise any venture that claims to non-profit, and damn the men who made the profits that make the venture possible…’Public benefit’ is anything given as alms; to engage in trade is to injure the public. ‘Public welfare’ is the welfare of those who do not earn it; those who do, are entitled to no welfare. ‘The public,’ to you, is whoever has failed to achieve any virtue or value; whoever achieves it, whoever provides the goods you require for survival, ceases to be regarded as part of the public…”
(1050) What abdication of thought allowed you to think that you could get away with this when all it took was for your victims to simply say ‘no!’? What permits a beggar to wave his weaknesses “…in the face of his betters and to plead for help in the tone of a threat?” You say that it is our pity
on which you are counting, but the secret truth is that you are counting on our guilt. You want us to remain “…guity of succeeding at existence, guilty of enjoying the life that you damn, yet beg us to help you to live.”
(1050) Just who is John Galt? “I am the first man of ability who refused to regard [ability] as guilt…I am the first man who told them that I did not need them, and until they learned to deal with me as traders, giving value for value, they would have to exist without me, as I would
exist without them…” By withdrawing, I am doing what other men of intelligence have done before me, the only difference being that I understand that I am right. Out of either protest or despair, many men have retired from public life and refused to share that which was the passion of their mind. These men who gave up in earlier times did not understand either “the meaning of their action” or the “knowledge of the right.” And so they gave to you “the power of reality” and died in “bitter futility.”
(1051) The Dark Ages was simply “an era of intelligence on strike. Whenever mystics have ruled, it has always been “an era of stagnation and want.” In these times, the men of intelligence lived a life of basic subsistence, refused to think, refused to produce, be
jcause their existence was subject to the whim of either a mystic of divinity or a mystic with a club.
(1051) However, in this age and in this time, you will perish and we will survive.
(1051) I have shown the men of intelligence that they have “moral value.” They have always known that they have power, but for ages they have been told that their power was evil. I have told them that their power is right, just and glorious.
(1052) You, the mystics, “…claim that you long to rise above the crude concerns of the body, above the drudgery of serving mere physical needs…” So who, then, is the real “conquerer of physical reality: the man who sleeps on a bed of nails or the man who sleeps on an inner-spring mattress?” Which is a greater “monument to the triumph of the human spirit over matter: the germ-eaten hovels on the shorelines of the Ganges or the Atla
ntic skyline of New York?”
(1052) Unless you answer these questions and truly give reverence to the achievements of the human mind, you will leave this earth prematurely. I am the one who is showing you exactly how you have forced others to support you. We will provide for you no more. And if you perish, you should know that “…you were defeated by your own evasions.”
(1052) For those of you who still love your life, I will offer you “the chance to make a choice. Choose whether you wish to perish for a morality you have never believed or practiced.” All of you are kidding yourselves and you know it. “Since childhood, you have been hiding the guilty secret that you feel no desire to be moral…”, when morality means sacrificing your life to the hereafter or to your fellow man. You each think that you’re the only guilty one, the only one who carries the feeling inside that you want to live for yourself. You each fake reality, pretend
ing that you have desires that you are expected to have, and no one “…having the courage to break the vicious circle.”
(1053) What cripples you is that you maintain “…the lethal tenet: the belief that the moral and the practical are opposites. Since childhood, you have been running from the terror of a choice you have never dared fully to identiy: If the practical, whatever you must practice to exist, whatever works, succeeds, achieves your purpose, whatever brings you food and joy, whatever profits you, is evil – and if the good, the moral, is the impractical, whatever fails, destroys, frustrates, whatever injures you and brings you loss or pain – then your choice is to be moral or to live.”
(1053) The result of this tenet is that you have removed morality from your life. You grew up thinking that the “…moral laws bear no relation to the job of living…” What you have forgotten is that “…the evils damned by your creed…”, productivity, re
)ason, energy and ability, are actually “…the virtues required for living.”
(1053) The result is that you don’t dare to be fully evil or to be fully alive. When you feel joy, you also carry some guilt for being happy when others are not. When you feel pain, your pain is enlarged because you believe that pain is a natural part of living. For you, morality is both duty and punishment, designed to keep you away from your pleasures. And what are your pleasures? Drunkeness and prostitution. For you, “pleasure cannot be moral.”
(1053) The “grotesque conclusion” of all this is that “…you believe that morality is a necessary evil.” You think that you must be moral to stop yourself from acting on your natural urges. It is beyond your paradigm to understand that you can choose to be moral. Your
creed starts with a demand, made either by a spiritual being or a societal leader, that you be moral. Do you wonder why your life is empty, why you are faced with “unanswerable questions, why your life is torn by impossible conflicts?”
(1054) The answer is simple: You haved rejected “…your tool of perception – your mind…” And now you “…complain that the universe is a mystery.”
(1054) For two hours now you have been listening and if you ask now say to yourself, “Why should we go to extremes?”, then you are simply being a coward. “The extreme that you have always struggled to avoid is the recognition that reality is final, that A is A and that the truth is true. “By making moral judgements impossible, [your moral code] has made
you incapable of rational judgement. A code that forbids you to cast the first stone, has forbidden you to admit the identity of stones and to know when or if you’re being stoned.” {Underlining TMP}
(1054) “The man who refuseds to judge…is the man responsible for all the blood that is now spilled in the world. Reality is an absolute…and so is human life.”
(1054) “There are two sides to every issue: one side is right and the other side is wrong, but the middle is always evil. The man who is wrong still retains some respect for truth, if only by accepting the responsibility of choice. But the man in the middle is the knave who blanks out the truth in order to pretend that no choice or values exist…In any compromise between good and evil, it is only evil that can profit.”
(1055) When someone chastises you for being selfish for being so certain of being right, “…you hasten to assure them that you’re certain of nothing…When some barefoot bum in some pesthole of Asia yells at you: How dare you to be rich – you apologize and beg him to be patient and promise him you’ll give it all away.” Your unwillingness to take a stand only hurts your situation. Right and wrong exist, and yet you compromise on something that is fundamentally good and say that you really don’t believe that you can judge what is right and wrong. Your actions allow their philosophy to grow.
(1055) You have continually denied your right to existence. Over time, you have expanded your view of what is a selfish concern: from your children to your community to your country. Now you say the only morally proper concern is for the earth in its entirety. As your scope of concern has expanded, your self-esteem has shrunk. Without claiming your right to existence, you nega
te any claim you have to values, to what is right or wrong. {A person cannot know the difference between right and wrong if he doesn’t agree with the fundamental tenet that his life is good.}
(1055) After following all of this twisted logic, you make the “final act of treason” when you accept the pronouncement of your leaders – that they are “the champions of reason and science” and, furthermore, “…you agree that faith is your cardinal principal…” You say that “…there is no rational justification for freedom, for property, for justice, for rights, that they rest on mystical insight and can be accepted only on faith…” You become convinced that causality is what it is not. You tell your children that “…skyscrapers, factories, radios, airplanes were the products of faith and mystic intuition, while famines, concentration camps and firing squads are the products of a reasonable manner of existence…” You believe that your country will gain new levels of material wea
lth because of its commitment to science, but you also think that material wealth is evil and, therefore, you must personally renounce it.
(1056) You ignore the fact that your leaders are fighting a war against the mind and are actively punishing “the crime of thinking.” You ignore the fact that your mystical leaders are alternatively acting as materialists and spiritualists. When they are materialists, they destroy your body; when spiritualists, they destroy your consciousness. You are a sacrificial animal to your leaders, but you refuse to do anything about this because your moral code will not allow you to deny the sacrifice of your self. If you are to fight your leaders, you will have to assert “your right to exist” and the only way you can do this is to reject your current morality.
(1056) You ignore the situation because your self-esteem, in your morality, is tied into being unselfish, even though you’ve never reached your ideal. Certainly, you have pretended to be unselfish for many years,
but now “…the thought of denouncing it fills you with terror.” Your morality only allows you to protect your self-esteem by continuing to accept the doctrine of self-sacrifice. The truth is that self-esteem comes only to those individual’s who accept my moral code, who earn what they are worth, who pay their way.
(1057) One of man’s first discoveries in his life is that self-esteem is crucial to maintaining a happy existence. “As a being of volitional consciousness, he knows that he has to be right; to be wrong in action means danger to his life; to be wrong in person, to be evil, means to be unfit for existence.”
(1057) Man has no choice about the need for self-esteem. Every action a man takes, especially every action of basic survival like eating, drinking and seeking basic pleasures, implies that the person seeking that action is worthy of that action. The only choice man makes is by what gauge he monitors his own self-esteem. If he uses his own actions and character, directed towards the improve
ment of himself as a man, then he is well on his way towards high self-esteem and happiness. If, however, he uses as the gauge of his self-esteem the extent to which he sacrifices to some other cause other than himself , then he will never have self-esteem, because his gauge demands that he destroy himself to become more self-worthy. This is contrary to the fact that existence is good. This man will only gain self-esteem when he literally extinguishes himself.
(1057) “Every form of causeless self-doubt, every feeling of inferiority and secret unworthiness is, in fact, man’s hidden dread of his inability to deal with existence.” These feelings of inferiority often build up in a man until he is faced with “…pronouncing himself irredeemably evil…” At that point, he will either go insane or commit suicide. To avoid this pronouncement, a man may do one of two things: first, he may ignore the reality of the situation, leading to further loss of self-esteem; second, he may face the reality of the situati
on and fix the things about himself which he has allowed to become evil. “To fear to face an issue is to believe that the worst is true.”
(1057) If you want to know why you feel constant guilt, the reason is not any specific crime, failure, error or flaw. The reason is that you have made the choice to abandon your thinking. You refuse to acknowledge that you have made mistakes. You choose to refuse to see reality. And if you want to know why you feel constant fear, it’s because you are existing without
your basic “weapon of survival,” your ability to think. {It is such a small point upon which people fail. Mistakes are not the end of the world, but refusing to see mistakes is, because it means that you are abandoning reality. Right and wrong exist. You cannot make yourself valuable by mentally recreating whatever has happened and telling yourself that you were right. You can only become worthy by making your thoughts and actions valuable and positive.}
(1057) “The self you have betrayed is your mind; self-esteem is reliance on one’s power to think. The ego you seek…is not your emotions or inarticulate dreams, but your intellect…”
(1057) Man has always sought some kind of paradise, whether it was Atlantis or the Garden of Eden. The commonality between all of m
an’s longings for paradise was a “radiant state of existence,” where man possessed “…the independence of a rational consciousness facing an open universe.”
(1058) “But those of you who have known a single moment of love for existence and of pride in being its worthy lover,…have known the state of being a man, and I – I am the only man who knew that that state is not to be betrayed.”
(1058) It is your choice. Do you or do you not want to dedicate your life to your personal highest potential? If you do, then you must also accept “…the fact that the noblest act you have ever performed is the act of your mind in the process of grasping that two and two make four.” If you want to live your life in the most happy and truly satisfying state, a state of love of existence and pride in being a valuable participant in life, then dedicate yourself to your highest potential, which will only be achie
ved through a life of rational thought.
(1058) To make this choice, you must start from scratch and accept the very core of our philosophy, which is the choice to use your mind. A “costly historical error” was made when a philosopher {Descartes} said, ‘I think, therefore I am.’ To make the choice for the most glorious and happy and productive state of life, declare to yourself, “I am, therefore I’ll think.” You must also admit that all of your “doubts” and “evasions” were an attempt to “…escape from the responsibility of a volitional consciousness…Accept the irrevocable fact that your life depends upon your mind.”
(1058) “Do not say that you’re afraid to trust your mind because you know so little.” Do you really think you’ll be safer if you surrender your mind to a mystic than if you keep it for yourself? Admit to yourself that you don’t know everything, but don’t believe that if act l
ike a
zombie” you will gain a higher and clearer truth. “Accept the fact that…an error made on your own is safer than ten truths accepted on faith…”, because the errors you make yourself can be corrected when you use your mind to understand your mistake. The errors you make because of faith can never be corrected because faith does not allow a person to “distinguish truth from error.” You must lose your dream of reaching higher levels of truth by becoming unconscious. Understand that, as a human being, man’s “…dinstinction in the universe…his nature, his morality, his glory…” is his ability to acquire knowledge through “…his own will and effort…”
(1059) You must give up the idea that “man is imperfect.” Making that claim gives you a license to do evil. “Accept the fact that in the realm of morality nothing less than perfection will do.” This is not difficult to do because the gauge of your morality is whether or not you are thinking. Your morality has nothing to do with your wealth, y
our attractiveness, your social standing. “Moral perfection is an unbreached rationality.”
(1059) “You need to understand the differences between errors of knowledge and breaches of morality. An error of knowledge is not a moral flaw, provided you are willing to correct it…But a breach of morality is the conscious choice of an action you know to be evil, or a willful evasion of knowledge…Make every allowance for errors of knowledge; do not forgive or accept any breach of morality.”
(1059) “Accept the fac
t that the achievement of your happiness is the only moral purpose of your life, and that happiness – not pain or mindless self-indulgence – the proof of your moral integrity…” Happiness is your responsibility. It is not easy because it requires a “rational discipline” to be a productive, positive, thinking and honest individual. However, only by using your mind to take the rigtht actions will you earn your own self-worth. “Discard the protective rags of that vice which you called a virtue: humility – learn to value yourself, which means: to fight for your happiness – and when you learn that pride is the sum of all virtues, you will learn to live like a man.”
(1059) “As a basic step of self-esteem, learn to treat as the mark of a cannibal any man’s d
emand for your help.” By making a demand, that man makes a “…claim that your life is his property…” Under these circumstances, it is never proper to help another man. However, it is proper to help another man if it is “…based on your own selfish pleasure in the value of his person and his struggle.” It doesn’t matter whether it is a penny you don’t need or a friendly smile, every time you give anything to someone who, in your opinion, has no virtues, you are adding to “the desolation of your world.”
(1060) Don’t say that my morality is too difficult to practice. Whenever you have truly lived, you have lived by my morality, the morality of reward, selfishness and esteem. Look at the world and all its problems. It all started inside y
our own consciousness. If you want to fix the problems of the world, start with yourself.
(1060) We, the men of the mind on strike, are the producers. We are the ones who made the world and all of its good life possible. And yet, you failed to recognize our true value and you lost the world. “You failed to recognize the hero in your soul…” If you want to regain the world, you must start by regaining your self-esteem.
(1060) The problems started because you did not recognize man’s mind and you attempte
d to rule man by force. Those who submitted had no mind and those who had a mind refused to submit. This is why my friends, Francisco d’Anconia and Ragnar Danneskjöld, choose to live as they did. Francisco decided to destroy his fortune rather than to give it away to you. Ragnar decided to “defend his values by force” rather than submit to force.
(1060) The three of us started what I am now completing, the release of this country’s “imprisoned soul…” You had the idiocy to look at this country and all of its highways, factories and bridges, “an achievement unequaled in history,” and to destroy it. You looted it; you forgot the cause of the achievement; you damned the country as immoral; you said that progress was ‘material greed;’ you even offered apologi
es for this country’s greatness to other countries.
(1061) This country could never have been built on the morality of sacrifice and it will certainly not survive if this morality continues. The morality of sacrifice has “…damned this earth as evil and those who succeeded on earth as depraved. From its start, this country was a threat to the ancient rule of mystics. In the brilliant rocket-explosion of its youth, this country displayed to an incredulous world what greatness was possible to man, what happiness was possible on earth.” The mystics knew that America was a threat, but you did not. “You let them infect you with the worship of need…” Only in the current state of this country’s depravity would Hank Rearden, the “living soul” of this country, the example of its morality and its greatness, the heroic man, an industrialist – only now would Hank Rearden be completely “unhonored” and unappre
ciated.
(1061) Neither Rearden nor any of the men of the mind will return to rebuild this country until the morality of sacrifice has been exterminated. Then we will rebuild the country on the moral premise that “…man is an end in himself…that man’s life, his freedom, his happiness are his by inalienable right.”
(1061) You have “…lost the concept of a right…the source of man’s rights is not divine law or congressional law…Rights are conditions of existence required by man’s nature for his proper survival. If a man is to live on earth, it is right for him to use his mind,…it is right to work for his values and to keep the product of his work. If life on earth is his purpose, he has a right to live as a rational being: nature forbids him the irrational.”
(1061) Rights are simply a moral concept…and both rights and morality are matters of choice. Men are free to choose not to make “…man’s survival as the standard of their morals and their laws, but not free to escape from the fact that th
e alternative is a cannibal society…” Man cannot escape the law of identity, that A is A. “Just as man can’t succeed by defying reality, so a nation can’t, or a country, or a globe.”
(1062) “Just as man can’t exist without his body, so no rights can exist without the right to translate one’s rights into reality – to think, to work and to keep the results – wheich means: the right of property.” Do not be fooled by those who would offer you ‘human rights’ as a substitute for ‘property rights.’ Saying this simply means that humans have the right to make property out of other humans. If you have the right to think, but not the right to the material reward, then you are a ghost; if you have the right to work, but again no right to property, then you are a slave.
(1062) “The source of property rights is the law of causality. All property and all forms of wealth are produced by man’s mind and labor. As you cannot have effects without causes, so you cannot have wealth without its source: without intelligence.”
(1062) You cannot have property rights in the same world where force rules. “You cannot force intelligence to work: those who’re able to think, will not work under compulsion; those who will [think], won’t produce [by working] much more than the price of the whip needed to keep them enslaved. You cannot obtain the products of the mind except on the owner’s term, by trade and by volitional consent.”
(1062) “The only proper purpose of a government is to protect man’s rights, which means: to protect him from physical violence. A proper government is only a policeman, acting as an agent of man’s self-defense, and, as such, may resort to force only against those who start the use of force. The only proper functions of a government are:
1) the police, to protect you from criminals;
2) the army, to protect you from foreign invaders; and
3) the courts, to protect your property and contracts from breach or fraud by others, to settle disputes by rational rules, according to objective law.”
Any government that starts fo
rce against an individual who had started no force against another is reversing its own morality by employing the deadly concept of force, from which it was originally empowered to protect its citizens. Such a government is “a nightmare infernal machine.” {Her definition of government is interesting for its lack of coverage of many issues: environment, roads, education, public health.}
(1063) “Only a brute, a fool or an evader can agree…that the will of the majority is omnipotent, that the physical force of muscles and numbers is a substitute for justice, reality and truth.” Being in the majority never makes a person’s conduct right. We, the men of the mind, are not masters or slaves. We are traders. We will not force others to trade with us and we will not allow ourselves to be forced into labor.
(1063) When men lived like savages and believed that the world was ruled by mystical forces, then “…no thought, no science, no production were possible. Only when men discovered that nature was
a firm, predictable absolute were they able to rely on their knowledge, to choose their course, to plan their future and, slowly, to rise from the cave.” Now you want to render modern industry, the product of reason, to the subservience of emotion and faith. Industrialists and capitalists will only invest their money, their thought and their efforts when they believe that they will receive a return. How do you expect them to invest anything when your emotion or your faith might, at any moment, decide to take from them the fruits of their labor? Now you might get some men to work and labor under your government, but only those who “…live and plan by the range of a day.” But the greater accomplishments take longer than a day. “The better the mind, the longer the range.” No man with a resolute long-range mind will invest under your capricious leader’s government.
(1063) For those of you who think that you cannot “compete with men of superior intelligence,…that the strong leave no chance to the weak…”, you must rethink your logic: If you have a weak mind, your worst situation would be if you were isolated in the wilderness. Then you would only survive and prosper based upon your intellectual abilities. In an industrial society, however, that same weak-minded person benefits from the more intelligent minds who have made every man’s labor more productive.
(1064) People who labor in factories are not paid simply for their labor; they are also paid for the intelligence of the men who built and now run the factory: the inventors of the machinery, the managers of the operations, the salesmen who bring the orders in, the capitalists who invested their money in the business. {I wonder what Dr. Deming would think of this notion? He would probably agree that workers are not responsible for the system, but add that it is short-sighted to believe that all of the ideas for increasing productivity come from the managers. Our company’s suggestion program has been a phenomenal success. We have receiv
ed and implemented hundreds of suggestions, most of which are little productivity improvement ideas suggested by our factory workers.}
(1064) “The machine, the frozen form of a living intelligence, is the power that expands the potential of your life by raising the productivity of your time.” If a man were a blacksmith in the Middle Ages, making steel with a hand forge, his standard of living would be quite low. Now transport the same man into the Twentieth Century and put him to work in Hank Rearden’s steel mill. His standard of living would be many times better than before. The key factor in his higher standard of living is Hank Rearden: his mind, his dedication, his commitment to excellence.
(1064) “Every man is free to rise as far as he’s able or willing, but it’s only the degree to which he thinks that determines the degree to which he’ll rise.” The man who only does physical labor consumes the value of what he produces and leaves nothing extra; on the other hand, the “…the man who produces an idea in any field of rational endeavor…is the permanent benefactor of humanity.” Material wealth only goes as far as the consumer of that wealth; however, “…the value of an idea…can be shared with unlimited numbers of men, making
{all sharers richer at no one’s sacrifice or loss, raising the productive capacity of whatever labor they perform.” As long as a man wants to work and earn his way through life, without getting handouts, then the interests of an intelligent and non-intelligent man are united.
(1065) As a matter of fact, in most cases it is the unintelligent man who benefits from the smarter man. Take the example of an inventor and the untelligent man who uses that invention in a factory. The inventor provides an idea and only receives a material wage, albeit high. In addition, the inventor’s payment as a percentage of the value he added is very low. On the other hand, the worker receives the benefit of that man’s intelligence and, moreover, his payment from the idea as a percentage of the value he personally adds is very high. It is this beneficial nature of the human mind which you have called ‘exploitation.’ The table below illustrates:
(1065) This was the type of service which we were willing to give to this society. All we asked in return was the freedom use our minds, to make or lose money, “…to submit our products to your judgement for the purpose of a voluntary trade…You decided to call it unfair that we, who had dragged you out of your hovels…should own our palaces and yachts – you decided that you had a right to your wages, but we had no right to our profits…” And our response was: “May you be damned!”
(1065) You wanted to compete on brutality instead of competing on intelligence. “You called it selfish and cruel that men should trade value for value – you have now established an unselfish society where…men gang up on one another and struggle for possession of the law, which they use as a club over rivals…” You are now seeing the difference “…between economic and political power, between the power
of money and the power of guns…”
(1066) Some of you may say that you were simply ignorant of what was occurring. Maybe so, but the most damned are those who were competent enough to understand, but chose to ignore what was happening. The worst of these offenders are those who have allowed their intelligence to be used for “…inventing weapons of coercion and destruction. They, the intellects who seek escape from moral values, they are the damned on this earth, theirs is the guilt beyond moral forgiveness. Do you hear me, Dr. Robert Stadler?” Dr. Stadler does not think for himself anymore and, therefore, I have nothing to say to him.
(1066) The people I would like to address are those who are concerned about the state of the world and have “…an honest, rational desire to learn…To those who desire to live…stop supporting your own destroyers. The evil of the world is made possible by nothing but the sanction you give it.” Do not beg and do not take bribes. Moreover,
do not go on working for your own profit and success when your leaders are taking everything from you that is rightfully yours.
(1067) What your leaders want from you is “your living ambition.” If you show them that you want to live and prosper, they will harness your desire, like an ox that carries a yoke, and you will become their slave, only because of your desire. What you must do is: “Go on strike – in the manner I did. Use your mind and skill in private, extend your knowledge, develop your ability, but do not share your achievements with others…When they force you, obey – but do not volunteer.” You wouldn’t be friendly with a man who was mugging you. Your leaders are no different. Do not give them your sanction.
(1067) If you can escape from your society, I encourage you to do so. However, I also encourage you not to become a criminal. Instead, “…build a productive life of your own with those who accept your moral code…”
(1067) “Act as a rational being and aim at becoming a rallying p
oint for all those who are starved for a voice of integrity…”
(1067) “When the looters’ state collapses,…when the advocates of the morality of sacrifice perish with their final ideal – then and on that day we will return.”
(1067) “We will open the gates of our city to those who deserve to enter…With the sign of the dollar as our symbol – the sign of free trade and free minds – we will move to reclaim this country once more from the impotent savages who never discovered its nature, its meaning, its splendor.”
(1068) “Then this country will once more become a sanctuary for a vanishing species: the rational being.” We will build a political system with the premise: “…no man may obtain any values from others by resorting to physical force. Every man will stand or fall, live or die by his rational judgement.”
(1068) “In that world, you’ll be able to rise in the morning with the spirit you had known in your childhood: that spirit of eagerness, adventure and certainty which comes from dealing with a rational universe.” Children are not afraid of the world, but you are because you have substituted irrational explanations for things that you did not understand. In our world, human beings will be “…as consistent and reliable as facts…Your virtues will be given prot
ection, your vices and weaknesses will not.” You won’t receive pity or charity, but you will receive justice. When you view yourself or your fellow men, you won’t feel “disgust, suspicion and guilt,” but instead you’ll feel respect.
(1068) “Such is the future you are capable of winning. It requires a struggle; so does any human value. All life is purposeful struggle, and your only choice is the choice of a goal. Do you wish to continue the battle of your present or do you wish to fight for my world?…Such is the choice before you. Let your mind and your love of existence decide.”
(1068) “The last of my words will be addressed to those heroes who might still be hidden in the world, those who are held prisoner, not by their evasions, but by their virtues and their desperat
e courage…In the name of your magnificent devotion to this earth, leave them, don’t exhaust the greatness of your soul on achieving the triumph of the evil of theirs. Do you hear me…my love?”
(1069) “In the name of the best within you, do not sacrifice this world to those who are its worst…Do not lose your knowledge that man’s proper estate is an upright posture, an intransigent mind and a step that travels unlimited roads.”
(1069) “Fight for the value of your person. Fight for the virtue of your pride. Fight for the essence of that which is man: for his sovereign rational mind.”
(1069) “You will win when you are ready to pronounce the oath I have taken at the start of my
battle…:
(1069) “I swear – by my life and my love of it – that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.”
Chapter VIII – The Egoist
{Egoism n.
1.a. The ethical doctrine that morality has its foundations in self-interest. b. The ethical belief that self-interest is the just and proper motive for all human conduct.
2. Excessive preoccupation with one’s own well-being and interests, usually accompanied by an inflated sense of self-importance.
3. Egotism; conceit.}
P1070. Still gathered at the radio station, the immediate response of the leaders is either denial that the speech ever occurred, a hazy acknowled
gement that it did occur or a refusal to be blamed for having listened to it. No one knows exactly what to do or say. Someone wants to leave the room and Mr. Thompson orders the person to ’stay put.’ This order brings Thompson back to his reality, of a world ruled by force. Jim Taggart is in a state of panic and whines to Thompson, “We don’t have to believe it!…Nobody’s ever said it before!…Who is he to go against…everything ever said for centuries and centuries?…Nobody can know what’s right! there isn’t any right!” Thompson shuts off Taggart.
(1071) The radio, which had been dead after the broadcast, begins playing the “military march” music which had been playing before Galt’s speech. Mouch angrily yells to have it turned off because he doesn’t want the people to think that the leaders authorized the speech. Thompson quickly tells Mouch and the technicians to keep the music playing. It would be a worse danger, says Thompson, if the public knew that the leaders had not authoriz
ed the speech.
(1071) Thompson is quickly developing his strategy of how to handle the situation, even though no one else in the room understands it. He tells the radio to play whatever they had scheduled and to “…go on as if nothing had happened!” Regarding the thoughts of the public, Thompson wants the commentators muzzled. He says, “Let the public wonder! Don’t let them think that we’re worried! Don’t let them think that it’s important!”
(1071) The other leaders continue to cling to their rationality, their sense of right and wrong. For that reason, they wholeheartedly reject the speech. Lawson, “the banker with a heart” (P294), says about the speech, “It’s horrible! It’s immoral! It’s selfish, heartless, ruthless! It’s the most vicious speech ever made! It…it will make people demand to be happy!” Chick Morrison, the morale conditioner, tentatively attempts to wade back into the murkiness of the looter language. He says, “It seems to me…that people of…mystical
insight…won’t go for that speech. Logic isn’t everything, after all.” The other leaders sense comfort in this approach and they begin convincing themselves that various groups of citizens will not accept the speech.
(1072) Dr. Ferris goes even further. About the speech, he says, “It was too intellectual…People are too dumb to understand it…In the first place, people can’t think. In the second place, they don’t want to.” Fred Kinnan, the union leader, brings everyone back to reality when he responds, “In the third place, they don’t want to starve. And what do you propose to do about that?” None of them really know. Thompson begins losing his patience. He asks the group what is to be done and “knowing that the man who answered would, thereafter, be the man in power.”
(1073) The person who responds is Dagny: “Give up and get out of the way. Leave men free to exist…You’re still alive, you’re using a human language, you’re asking for answers,…you’re still counting on rea
son. God damn you!…There’s nothing but destruction ahead, the world’s and your own. Give up and get out.” The other leaders don’t really hear her, other than her “quality of being alive”, to which they cling. Dagny’s voice had been angry, but she also is beginning to see their folly and Galt’s wisdom, as applied to her own life.
(1073) Dr. Stadler finally jumps into the conversation and tells them that they must not listen to Dagny. Galt is the true villain and he must be killed. “It’s your life or his!” Dagny says, give up “…your guns, your power, your controls and the whole of your miserable altruistic creed…”
(1074) Thompson is pondering how to approach the situation. He ends up taking a middle course. He tells the others not to be so hard on Dagny or even on Galt. He says there’s no need to agree or disagree with the broadcast. He tells them not to “jump to conclusions…to be flexible above all.” Rather than admit that one side is right or wrong, he is taking the middle gro
und, a strategy which Galt had described as evil in his speech (P1054). Thompson partonizes Dagny, thanking her for her comments and telling her that they are all really friends. Dagny and Eddie leave.
(1075) Stadler is terrified. He tells Thompson that dealing with Galt is very serious business. In a “…flat, cold, suddenly and fully conscious voice…”, he tells Thompson, “You must kill him.” The others are chillingly silent, because it is clear to them for this moment that Stadler is pro-death. Stadler goes on, “If he lives, he’ll destroy all of us! If he lives, we can’t!”
(1075) Thompson knows he must find Galt, but wonders how. Stadler suggests that they keep a tail on Dagny, because it is clear to him that “…she’s one of his kind…” Thompson agrees, but tells Stadler that Galt will not be killed when they catch him. Mouch speaks for the others when he tells Thompson that he doesn’t understand his approach. Thompson says th
at they need Galt. “He’ll tell us what to do. He’ll make things work. He’ll pull us out of the hole.” {The other looter leaders continue to cling to a shred of rationality, which tells them if something or someone is both horrible and correct (Galt), then that thing must either be fully acknowledged or exstinguished. Thompson realizes that their survival depends upon Galt and so he discards rationality in favor of pragmatism.} Thompson figures “…we’ll have to make a few concessions to big business, and the welfare boys won’t like it…”, but it’s the only way out. Mouch says that he thinks that Galt will not be “open to a deal.”
P1076. Eddie and Dagny are walking down a New York street after leaving the station. Eddie confesses that he has known Galt for many years and enjoyed speaking with him about all aspects of the railroad. Dagny asks if Galt ever asked about her, while she was asleep, and Eddie says yes (P438), making the connection,
that Dagny and Galt have known each other and are in love. Dagny tells Eddie not to give anyone a clue about Galt or his whereabouts. Later while walking, Eddie asks Dagny, “You’re going to quit, one of these days, and vanish, aren’t you?” Dagny says that she isn’t, that Taggart wouldn’t exist if she left and that if she hangs in there a little longer, she “…can still keep it in existence…” She tells him, “It won’t be long. And we’ll be here to save whatever’s left.” {It seems remarkable that Dagny still has not made the decision to become a striker.}
P1078. On November 23rd, the day after Galt’s broadcast, an official broadcast is made, describing Mr. Thompson’s current thoughts and wishes: “…there is no cause for alarm.” Galt’s speech is not sanctioned or rejected. Instead, the government says that, “The unconventional speech…was a thought-provoking contribution to our pool of ideas on world problems…We must regard it as one viewpoint out of many…The truth…has
many facets. We must remain impartial.”
(1079) The public citizens are not saying anything in response to either Galt or the government. They are, however, taking action, clearly in favor of Galt. Several buildings are set aflame by their owners, who subsequently have vanished. A speaker who told his audience to stop being so selfish is stoned. The management of a factory suddenly disappears during a workday.
(1080) On December 5th, an official broadcast says for the first time that Mr. Thompson is willing to negotiate with Galt to try to figure out a solution to the current situation. The people continue to take actions in support of Galt. A young man is beaten up by his older brother, who had supported him his entire life. The fight was instigated when the younger man accused his older brother of “selfishness and greed.” Chick Morrison was stoned when he attempted to make a speech “…on sacrifice for the general welfare.” All over the country, “the better men” are disappearing. These are the m
en of action, the men with tighter faces, more direct eyes, men “…whose energy was more conscientiously enduring…”
(1080) Thompson begins to mildly panic. He wants radio stations to both broadcast that he’s willing to negotiate and to also listen intently for a reply on any frequency, including the kind on which Galt’s speech was delivered.
(1080) Some men of action are unable to vanish. These men escape “…into the underground of their minds – and no power on earth could tell whether their blankly
indifferent eyes were shutters protecting hidden treasures…or merely gaping holes…” Looking at the blank faces of people on the streets, an observer can’t tell whether these individuals are men of the mind who cannot escape or men of faith who are parasites and cannibals.
(1081) Talented people are vanishing and the Unification Board, responsible for all job placements, is having a difficult time finding replacements. Numerous people want to work in menial jobs, but no one wants to take management jobs, which take
more brainpower. Even offers of material rewards and special honors does not bring in any men of ability. The men of ability simply don’t want to use their brains in the current system. Furthermore, the people currently in management jobs are causing industrial accidents and abusing their power.
(1081) On December 15th, an official radio broadcast declares, “Don’t give up!…We will get [John Galt] to lead us! He will solve all our problems!”
(1081) The government starts a rumor campaign. Half of the rumors spread are that John Galt is currently meeting with government officials to solve the situation; the other half of the rumors are that the government will offer half a million dollars reward to anyone who provides information that leads to the discovery of John Galt’s whereabouts. Mouch tells Thompson that they’ve searched the name John Galt throughout the country and come up with dead-ends, including “…a professor of orinthology,…a retired greengrocer,…an unskilled railroad labore
r who’s held the same job for twelve years – and other such trash.”
(1082) The official voice of the government is confident in public, but despairing in private because of their inability to find Galt. Meanwhile, prices of basic commodities, like wheat, are rising dramatically and anarchy is reigning in the streets: “Arrests were futile, the jails were full, the arresting officers winked at their prisoners and let them escape on their way to prison…” Secret societies begin to develop. They arm themselves to fend off whatever gangs might attack them for valuables. The dollar sign begins showing up scrawled as graffiti on buildings.
(1083) Rearden Steel is nationalized. The first person to assume the role of “People’s Manager” is an incompetent associate of Orren Boyle. When he proves unable to lead, he is replaced by a looter friend of Cuffy Meigs. This man wears “a gun on his hip” and preaches that “…discipline [is] his primary goal and that by God he’d get or else. The only discernable rule of the discipline had been his order forbidding all questions.” One night, he sells miscellaneous equipment to “sundry racketeers” overseas and then disappears. Rearden Steel is left in disarray: workers are fighting amonst themselves and no one knows what to do. The government can’t find anyone with ability to run the operation and so, on January 22nd, Rearden Steel is shut down.
(1084) Dagny doesn’t want to acknowledge the end of Rearden Steel and how painful it must be to Rearden. However, she remembers the words of Galt, that “…Nobody stays in this valley by faking reality in any manner whatever…” She acknowledges the events of Rearden Steel and bears the pain.
(1084) On January 26th, the United States seeks to borrow steel from Guatemala and is refused. Separately, a pilot flying over what was once Rearden Steel notices the absence of light and activity indicating life and productivity…he quits the next day.
(1084) Mr. Thompson summons Dagny to him and tells her that they can’t reach Galt. He says, “We’re ready to give in, to meet his terms, to let him take over – but where is he?” She says she doesn’t know. He says that they are willing to surrender to him, but they don’t want to admit this in public. They would quit and walk away, but they worry about what would happen to the country, considering its closeness to anarch. He asks Dagny what he should do and she says, “Start decontrolling…Start lifting taxes and removing controls.” He says that he would like to personally, but that “…people aren’t ready for freedom. We’ve got to keep a strong hand.” Thompson says he hopes that Galt is all right, especially because of the faction within his government that is prone to violence. He’s not sure what they would do if they ever found Galt before the more peaceful elements. This comment inspires “a rush of liquefying terror” in Dagny and she quickly leaves Thompson.
P1086. It is ten days since Dagny’s meeting with Thompson and Dagny has struggled with her fear that something has happened to Galt. Even though she knows that Galt doesn’t want to see her, she searches for him, in railroad tunnels, at the terminal entrances. She even calls a meeting of all the track laborers, under the guise of boosting morale, hoping to see Galt as she had before (P950).
(1088) Finally, she is unable to bear the thought of not knowing if he is dead or alive. At four a.m. one morning, she walks down a deserted street of a dilapidated neighborhood in New York, checking to make sure that she has not been followed. She feels like “…a naked bullet…in mid-flight…just the motion and the goal, nothing else.” With the address she had found on the Taggart payroll records (P1003), she finds the grimy apartment house where Galt has been living for twelve years. She thinks about how New York City is now just a modern-day Starnesville (P294), the slovenly town that once grew from Twentieth Century Motor. Reaching his
door, she rings the bell and he answers. Their eyes meet and she sees “…that a lightning process of calculation was bringing it into his conscious control…” and only an instant later he shows her “a smile of radiant greeting.”
(1089) He quickly pulls her into his apartment and they passionately kiss. Then he brings her back to the reality of the moment. Despite her denials, he knows that she has been followed. He tells her that they have probably surrounded the block and that she has only one strategy
which will save him. “If you did not quite understand what I said on the radio about the man in the middle, you’ll understand it now. There is no middle for you to take. And you cannot take my side, not so long as we’re in their hands. Now you must take their side.”
(1090) He tells her that she must “act as my worst enemy.” Extortion can only work through the values of the victim. As long as they have nothing of value to hold over him, their efforts will be unsuccessful. Dagny is the only thing he values and If they do threaten her physical torture, he says he will kill himself immediately. He goes on to tell her that such an action would not be “an act of self-sacrifice. I do not care to live on their terms, I do not care to obey them and I do not care to see you end
*uring a drawn-out murder. There will be no values for me to seek after that – and I do not care to exist without values.” He tells her to be as deceitful and dishonest as she needs to be in order to convince them that she hates him. No one owes morality to anyone who tries to control another person through force.
(1091) He tells her to tell the authorities, when they arrive, that she found Galt’s name on her payroll. She came looking for Galt in order to turn him over to the authorities and collect the half-million dollar reward. Dagny still hasn’t completely bought the idea that it would be better for her to quit and become a striker. Galt understands why: “You haven’t seen the nature of our enemies. You’ll see it now.”
(1092) Dagny says to him, “I didn’t care whether either one of u
s lived afterwards, just to see you this once!” Galt is not angry with her for coming to her. He even tells that he would’ve been disappointed if she hadn’t come. He tells her that he gave the speech from the valley and then came right back to New York.
(1092) She looks around his barren apartment and can hardly believe that he has lived here for twelve years. Galt then takes her to his laboratory. For Dagny, “…It was like crossing the border into a different universe. She looked at the complex equipment…glittering wires…mathematical formulas…objects shaped by the ruthless discipline of a purpose – then at the sagging boards and crumbling plaster of the garret. Either-or, she thought, this was the choice confronting the world: a human soul in the image of one or of the other.” {“Either-or” is the title of Part II of Atlas Shrugged (P337).} Galt tells her that he paid for his equipment using the royalties he earned from t
he equipment he built for the valley. He paid for his subsistence in New York from his earnings as a track laborer because no one is allowed to take income out of the valley.
(1093) Two items of significance are in the laboratory. One is a small version of the motor, the same one he invented at Twentieth Century and that is powering the valley. The other is a picture of Dagny at the opening ceremony of The John Galt Line. She senses the significance of the picture and her life and his life. He tells her, “I was the symbol of what you wanted to destroy in the world…But you were my symbol of what I wanted to achieve…This is how men expect to feel about their life once or twice, as an exception, in the course of their lifetime. But I – this is what I chose as the constant and the normal.”
(1094) The doorbell rings. It is four government men, three of them are thugs with guns, the fourth is a “frail civilian” who is the leader. After a few questions from the leader, Dagny turns Galt in. Galt agrees to answer, as long as they keep their “stool pigeon,” Dagny, away from him. The leader thanks Dagny for her patriotic duty. He obsequiously tells Galt how grateful he is to have found him. Meanwhile, the thugs search the apartment and finally find the locked door of the laboratory. They ask Galt to open the door, but he will not, saying that it is “private property.” They break down the door and, instantaneously, everything inside disintegrates. Dagny remembers the powerhouse in the valley. Galt had told her that any forceable entry would cause everything inside to self-destruct (P732). “…She was now seeing the visual form of the statement: Don’t try to force a mind.”
P1097. Galt is being held prisoner on the middle of three cordoned-off floors of the Wayne-Falkland Hotel. Numerous armed guards are positioned throughout the hotel. At 11 am, Mr. Thompson enters Galt’s room and locks the door behind him. He tells Galt that Galt really isn’t being held prisoner and if he needs anything, he should just tell him. Thompson tells Galt he gave quite a speech on the radio and that, although he agreed with parts of it, he didn’t agree with everything. Those differences, he says, “makes horse racing.”
(1098) Galt offers no response and Thompson become frustrated. Thompson tells Galt that he’d like to try to work something out, to make a deal. Galt says that he’s “…always open to a deal – with anyone who has a value to offer me.” Thompson tells Galt to name his terms and he will give it to him, but Galt says that he has no terms.
(1099) Finally, Thompson says, “The country is in a terribly state…We don’t know what to do about it…We want you to tell us what to do.” Galt responds, “Get out of the way.” Thompson shoots back, “That’s impossible!…Don’t go to extremes! There’s always a middle ground…You can’t expect us to ditch the machinery of State. We’ve got to preserve the system.” {An interesting choice of langua
ge. Deming would think the language appropriate, although the conclusion inappropriate. The system of government is the problem.}
(1099) Thompson offers Galt a deal in which the realms of politics and economics will be split and Galt will have complete control of the economic side. He will be “Economic Dictator.” Galt “burst[s] out laughing.” Thompson doesn’t understand. He says he’s offering Galt Mouch’s job and the ability to do whatever he wants. But Galt knows that the posi
tion is offered to him under coercion and, therefore, it would be completely immoral for him to accept it.
(1100) Thompson wants Galt to solve the country’s problems, but Thompson also refuses to admit that their system of government is the cause of the problems. When Thompson says that he doesn’t understand why the system is wrong, Galt tells him that his whole three-hour radio address was geared to explaning the current system’s problems.
(1101) Thompson doesn’t understand, but he keeps pushing Galt to see if there’s any way they can deal. Finally, Galt suggests to Thompson that to fix the country he should start by “abolishing all income taxes” and, rather than pay government employees, they should all simply be fired. Thompson refuses, saying that Galt is raising issues of politics, not economics.
(1101) Thompson can’t figure out what Galt is after. He says that he is willing to offer Galt anything. Galt tells him, “…you have no v
alue to offer me.” Thompson says he can give him a billion dollars, but Galt knows that he would have to produce that value. For every offer that Thompson has, Galt is the one who will produce the value. He asks Thompson, “What have you got to offer me that I couldn’t get without you?” Thompson tells Galt that he couldn’t leave the room without him: “What I’ve got to offer you is your life.” Galt responds, “It’s not yours to offer, Mr. Thompson…The removal of a threat is not a payment…the offer not to murder me is not a value…I don’t buy my life from anyone.”
(1103) Thompson tries a different angle. He tells Galt that he knows he is practical and so he says to Galt, “You should recognize an existing situation, accept it and adjust to it.” Galt says that adjusting to Thompson’s request would be like adjusting to blood poisoning. Thompson tells Galt, “All right, then: I hold a gun. What are you going to do about it?” Galt says he’ll do whatever Thompson wants him to, but only literally. Th
ompson is again frustrated. He admits he doesn’t know what to do and that all he wants is for Galt to think. Galt then asks, “How will your gun make me do that, Mr. Thompson?”
(1104) Thompson knows Galt is smarter than anyone in the government. He asks Galt, “Why don’t you pretend to join us, then gain control and outsmart me?” Galt says that he couldn’t beat Thompson at the game of looter politics and still save the economy. Thompson then tries to tell Galt that if the situation is really as bad as Galt says it is, then if Galt is held captive, he might perish with everyone else. Galt agrees. Thompson asks if Galt really wants to live. Galt responds, “I know that I want to live much more intensely than you do. I know that that’s what you’re counting on. I know that you, in fact, do not want to live at all. I want it. And because I want it so much, I will accept no substitute.” Thompson violently rejects that he doesn’t want to live and ends up leaving Galt, perplexed and frustrated.
P1105. Ga
lt is held captive for six more days. The newspapers publish optimistic stories about discussions being held between the government leaders and Galt. The citizens of the country, however, don’t believe that Galt is collaborating. Meanwhile, more factories are closing.
(1105) The leaders are in conference. None of them want to talk with Galt because they get nowhere and, moreover, he asks them difficult and penetrating questions. Kinnan, the union leader, actually likes Galt because “…he’s a man
who talks straight.” Morrison suggests letting the public see Galt on television to show that Galt really is working with the government. Lawson is scared because his “faith in humanity” has been shaken by Galt, the “ruthless egoist.” All of them agree that Galt is extremely tough. Ferris wants to torture Galt, but Thompson refuses to see himself as a murderer or torturer. Thompson tells the others that Galt is their only hope: “…if he goes, we.” The rest of the leaders silently agree.
(1108) The next day th
e newspapers announce that “The John Galt Plan” has been preliminarily completed and will soon be announced. Further insurrection occurs: farmers in South Dakota revolt; a civil war in California breaks out; certain California factions declare secession from the Union.
(1108) One day later, Dagny meets with Thompson, who seems to trust Dagny and be reassured by her presence. Thompson tells Dagny that Galt is refusing to lead. He asks her if she has him figured out. She tells him that Galt is an “arrogant egoist.” Dagny finds it easy to talk the looter’s language because it bears no relation to reality. She tells Thompson that she’s looking forward to receiving her reward check for having turned in Galt. Thompson is pl
^eased because he think he understands what really motivates Dagny. Thompson suggests that Dagny speak with Galt, but she says she won’t do it because she loathes him. He asks her if she thinks Galt will surrender. She considers that by answering that he will not surrender, Galt might be killed; by answering that he will surrender, they will keep their power and the world will collapse. Dagny says she thinks Galt will surrender because he’s “too ambitious to refuse power.” She suggests that if Thompson keeps Galt informed of the precarious state of the world, then Galt might be more likely to surrender. Dagny leaves Thompson and realizes that she has been perspiring profusel.
(1110) Walking through the Taggart Terminal, she feels a hatred for her railroad because its customers are now hardly human, more like “inanimate objects.” She receives
her reward check that afternoon from Thompson, along with a bouquet of flowers. The check is meaningless to her and she knows it will never be spent. Later that evening she goes home and finds a note from Francisco. Dagny laughs to herself. The note says: “Sit tight. Watch them. When he’ll need our help, call me…”
(1111) More fighting breaks out in the country, this time between Georgia and Alabama, in a fight over a factory.
(1111) Thompson and Jim Taggart meet with Galt the next day. Taggart tries to tell Galt that he should not feel so sure of himself and that he should feel some sense of social responsibility. “How can you take it upon yourself, at a terrible time like this, to stick to your ideas at the risk of destroying the whole world?…You’re no better tha
n anyone else!…I came here to appeal to your conscience! How can you value your mind above thousands of human lives?…People are perishing – and it’s you who could save them! Does it matter who’s right or wrong?…Do you realize what sort of egoist you are?” To this last question, Galt responds, “Do you?” Galt is completely unaffected by Taggart. Thompson notices a different type of cigarette smoked by Galt. It was given to Galt by an “anonymous admirer” and it bears the stamp of the dollar.
(1113) The next day, Galt meets with Chick Morrison and Thompson. Morrison attempts to appeal to Galt’s sense of pity. He shows Galt how he is being begged to help the country by schoolchildren, cripples, ministers and mothers. He tells Galt, “They can’t tell you what to do. They wouldn’t know. They’re merely begging you. They may be weak, helpless, blind, ignorant. But you, who are so intelligent an
d strong, can’t you take pity on them?” Galt responds, “By dropping my intelligence and following their blindness?”
(1114) On the following day, it is the turn of Dr. Ferris, who makes the arguement that if Galt doesn’t help, more people will die. He says that Galt’s radio speech was about “sins of commission,” but that there are also “sins of omission.” He says, “To fail to save a life is as immoral as to murder.” He tells Galt of the suggested plan to kill the old and the young in order to conserve resources. This plan will be enacted if they can’t somehow improve the economy. Ferris says that Galt would be guilty of all these murders if he doesn’t help. Thompson hears this and tells Ferris that he’s crazy and orders Ferris to leave.
(1115) Thompson wants to know if there is anyone with whom Galt would like to speak. He suggest Dagny, but Galt says, “I thought she was the kind who belonged on my side. But she double-crossed me, to keep her railroad. She’d sell her soul for her railroad.” Then
Galt says that he’d like to speak with Dr. Stadler. Thompson tells him that Stadler really isn’t his friend, but Galt says he wants to see him anyways.
(1115) Later that evening, Thompson learns that the Taggart Bridge over the Mississippi was damaged in an attack by a gang of raiders. Thompson, knowing the value of the bridge to the economy, orders the army to guard the bridge.
(1116) That same evening, Eddie reports to Dagny that Taggart Transcontinental is unable to get trains out of San Francisco bec
.ause the terminal has been taken over by some kind of faction attempting to impose a departure tax. Eddie tells Dagny that he’s going to San Francisco to straighten out the situation. Dagny tells him, “…what for? It doesn’t matter now. There’s nothing to save.” Eddie appears to have given up and resigned himself to fighting to save whatever piece of Taggart can be saved. He knows he doesn’t have the strength to start another railroad and he tells Dagny, “I don’t even want to make a new start. Not any more. Not after what I’ve seen…Let me do
what I can.” Dagny lets him go. Eddie knows that Dagny will quit very soon and Dagny doesn’t deny it. They say good-bye to each other. Eddie says, “Dagny…did you know…how I felt about you?” Dagny responds that she did, realizing now that she has always known that Eddie has been in love with her.
(1116) The next day Stadler is nervously walking to meet with Galt. The night before he had screamed and begged not to be forced to meet with Galt, but he was ordered to go. Entering the room alone with Galt, Stadler remembers how he had once told Galt, “The only sacred value in the world, John, is the human mind, the inviolate human mind…” Galt doesn’t ask anything. Stadler immediately launches into a discourse of justification: “I couldn’t help it!…I never had a chance against them! They own the world!…Don’t you know how futile it is, the mind, against those mindless hordes?…What could I do against their fists?…I had to make terms with them…You don’t know how lone
ly I was, how starved for some spark of intelligence…That gun was not aimed at the intellect! It was not aimed at men like you and me, only at mindless materialists!” Then his discourse changes from justification towards blame of Galt: “It would have worked, if you hadn’t withdrawn [the men of the mind]!…We can’t be guilty…all of us…for centuries…We can’t be so totally wrong!…You permit no moments of weakness, you don’t allow for human frailties or human feelings! What do you want of us? Rationality twenty-four hours a day, with no loophole, no rest, no escape?…Here you are, caught, helpless…about to be killed…and you dare to accuse me of being impractical! Oh yes, you’re going to be killed! You won’t win! You can’t be allowed to win! You are the man who has to be destroyed!” Stadler sees his own evil. He screams “No!” repeatedly and then runs out of the room.
P1119. Four days later, Galt is met in his room by Morrison and a bodyguard. Morrison tells Galt to put on his “dinner
clothes,” part of the fancy wardrobe which has been bought for Galt, but not worn. As they leave to go out somewhere, the bodyguard puts a hidden gun in Galt’s ribs and says, “Don’t make any false moves…” Galt responds, “I never do.” The three walk down to the mezzanine level, turn through a doorway and find themselves in the “grand ballroom of the Wayne-Falkland.” Some five hundred people are applauding and flashbulbs are exploding. A television set-up is being prepar
ed. Dagny is sitting at a side table, feeling happy to see Galt, but feeling panic that his life is endangered. Dagny and Galt’s eyes meet briefly.
(1121) The whole event is empty and irrational. It reminds Dagny of her youth, when she discovered that “…celebrations…should be only for those who have something to celebrate.” Looking at the people at the speaker’s table, Dagny can see that Galt is calm, while all the other looter leaders are nervous. The room itself is filled with people wearing “forced smiles…They knew that neither their God nor their guns could make this celebration mean what they were struggling to pretend it meant.”
(1122) An announcer says that the purpose of this event is to inaugurate The John Galt Plan. “The dawn of a new age! Th
e product of a harmonious collaboration between the humanitarian spirit of our leaders and the scientific genious of John Galt!” The television shows each of the faces of the leaders at the table, faces which hold “…fear,…evasion,…despair,…uncertainty,…self-loathing,…guilt…” Then the camera shows the face of Galt. Dagny is struck by the contrast. Galt’s face is “…implacable by virtue of serenity, invulnerable by virtue of self-esteem. This face – she thought – among those others?…there’s the product of one code and of the other, there’s the choice, and whoever is human will know it.”
(1122) Galt is introduced by several speakers, each paying their tribute. Morrison claims that Galt’s presence disproves any belief that a merger between Galt and
the current leadership was not possible.
(1123) It seems ironic to Dagny that these men are offering the best that they have to Galt, but it is completely meaningless. The ceremony is “mindless adulation…approval without standards, tribute without content, honor without causes, admiration without reasons…” Most of the faces in the audience, however, cannot tell the difference between a person like Mouch and Galt. Their faces seem to carry the question: “Who am I to know?” Then she remembers the words Galt once said to her, “The man who declares, ‘Who am I to know?’ is declaring, ‘Who am I to live?’”
(1124) Thompson leans over to Galt and tells him that he’ll be asked to say just a few words at the end of the ceremony, something like “Hello, folks.” At the same time, Galt feels the pressure of the bodyguard’s gun in his side.
(1124) Mouch gives his introduction, saying that The John Galt Plan will “…reconcile all c
onflicts…It will combine the efficiency of free enterprise with the generosity of a planned economy.” Dagny notices that certain members of the audience, especially Jim Taggart, look at Galt with hatred. She can tell that “…they hate him for his capacity to live.”
(1124) Finally, Thompson pays tribute to Galt. He says that Galt will save the economy with energy “produced by some sort of a motor the like of which we’ve never seen!…He has heard your pleas and has answered the call of our common human duty! Every man is his brother’s keeper!…Ladies and Gentlemen, John Galt – to the collective family of mankind!” With the camera trained on him, Galt expertly steps to the side and exposes the gun trained on him. He yells, “Get the hell out of my way!”
Chapter IX – The Generator
{Generator n. 1. One that generates, especially a machine that converts mechanical energy into electrical energy.}
(1126) After Stadler had run screaming out of Galt’s suite at the Wayne-Falkland, he had told Thompson that no once could deal with Galt. Thompson had told Stadler that Galt wasn’t budging and that they might have to resort to some sort of pressure to coerce Galt to lead. If they did use pressure, Thompson says that Stadler would be their first choice as a hostage that Galt would not want to see hurt. It was at that moment, feeling trapped, that Stadler had concluded that the answer to his situation was to seize control of Project X and become a ruler of a part of the country. His true motive, although unwilling to admit it to himself, was to show Galt that “…there is no other way to live on earth!” In other words, he wants to show Galt that using force against other humans is the way.
(1126) Robert Stadler hears Galt yell “Geth the hell out of my way!” on his radio as he is driving to Iowa. He has been driving for four days, paranoid of being pursued, despite the absence of pursuers. In his deluded state he has convinced himself into believing that Pro
ject X was really his invention.
(1128) Upon arriving at Project X, he finds that its headquarters facility has been taken over by some type of para-military gang. Stadler is led to the boss of this gang, who turns out to be Cuffy Meigs. Meigs is drunk and is declaring to one of his comrades the sovereignty of his new nation. He wants taxes to be paid to him immediately. Stadler tells Meigs that he has come to take control of Project X and that Meigs is not fit to run anything, let alone the Harmo
nizer. Meigs laughs at Stadler and tells him to get lost. Stadler says that the Harmonizer is his property because he invented it. He says, “Have you any idea what I had to know in order to make it possible? You couldn’t think of a single tube of it!…how dare you think that you can own it?…What claim do you have to it?” {Stadler makes an argument similar to what Galt might argue, that his mind is what gives him the right to property. However, Stadler’s situation, background and motive, make the whole situation ridiculous.} Meig’s responds by showing Stadler his gun. Meigs and Stadler proceed to argue heatedly over who should be in charge and who really has power. Both are terrified: Stadler because he can see that Meigs is his “spiritual son;”
Meigs because Stadler appears mystical, like so many others who are unafraid of his power. Finally, Meigs tells Stadler, “I’ll show you who’s boss!” and he pulls a lever on the Xylophone. The result is complete destruction of everything within a hundred mile radius, including Meigs, Stadler and the Taggart Bridge.
P1133. Dagny has to cover her mouth to hide her laughter after Galt says, “Get the hell out of my way!” The ballroom becomes a scene of bedlam and panic. Thompson quickly orders Galt to be taken away and heavily guarded. Dagny follows Thompson and his entourage to a private room. No one impedes her and she observes the scene. They know they are trapped. They are moaning, berating, accusing each other and no one in particular. Ch
“ick Morrison resigns and leaves the room. Holloway tells the group that Morrison “…has a hide-out stocked for himself in Tennessee…” It’s clear that Holloway has also made preparations for a doomsday scenario.
(1134) All of the remaining leaders recognize that the time has come to use force to coerce Galt to cooperate. Ferris tells the group that they should be thankful that he started the State Science Institute, where he has put together a special torture chamber called Project F. Jim Taggart is excited about the prospect of torturing Galt. Mouch, a pacifist, is trying to justify their course of action and says, “It seems to me…that…that the end justifies the means…” Thompson is frazzled and can’t go on leading. He tells them all, “Oh, do anything you want! I couldn’t he
lp it!
It is unclear who, if anyone, is now in charge, although it is most likely Ferris. Ferris tells an attendant to have the radio stations ready in three hours, when he believes that Galt will have changed his mind and agreed to cooperate. Dagny can see that these trapped men are finally seeing that death and destruction are what they truly want. She thinks to herself, “This was the nature and the method of the rebellion against existence and of the undefined quest for an unnamed Nirvana. They did not want to live; they wanted him to die.”
(1135) Dagny knows that she must act and that she is in a dangerous situation. Mouch is about to discuss plans to go to New Hampshire where they will torture Galt, but Mouch sees that Ferris is looking at Dagny. They all know she knows e
6verything, but they are beyond worrying about her. Dagny senses this, shrugs and leaves. Outside the building and around the corner, she runs to a phonebooth to call Francisco. She tells him the plan to take Galt to New Hampshire where he will be tortured using the “Ferris Persuader.” Francisco tells Dagny to pack some warm clothes and only a few essentials and to meet him in forty minutes at a street corner near the Taggart Terminal. She races home and fills a bag with clothes and two other important items: her bracelet of Rearden Metal and the gold coin she earned in the valley. She then hurries to her office where she puts a picture of Nat Taggart and a map of Taggart Transcontinental into her suitcase. On her way out, an engineer tells her that the Taggart Bridge has been destroyed. She instinctiv
Sely reaches for a phone to solve the problem, but she realizes her action and responds, with great difficulty, by putting the phone back. She tells the engineer that she doesn’t know what to do and that he should report to her later. As she walks through the terminal, she uses her lipstick to draw a large dollar sign on the pedestal of the statue of Nat Taggart (see P961).
(1138) Out on the street, Dagny can sense that New York City is panicking. Cars are driving too fast and sirens are wailing. People must be hearing about the Taggart Bridge and knowing that they will be doomed and cut off if they remain in the city. She sees Francisco and runs to greet him, but before saying anything, she takes the oath of the strikers (P731, P1069).
P1139. Ferris, Mouch, Jim Taggart, Galt and a technician are in a small room in the cellar of a
building on the grounds of the State Science Institute. The building is surrounded by sixteen armed guards who, like all the employees of Project F, have been selected because of their “unlimited capacity for obedience.” Galt is lying naked on a table in the middle of the room, hooked up electronically to a machine that looks like an “octopus.” With the machine on, one can hear both a humming from the machine and the sound of Galt’s heartbeat. Ferris tells Galt what they want from him: “We want you to take full power over the economy of the country…We want you to rule…We want ideas – or else. We won’t let you out of here until you tell us the exact measures you’ll take to save our system.” Galt does not respond and so Ferris begins the shock treatements at a low level. Galt’s body shakes, but he makes no sound. “Ferris’ eyes were blank, Mouch’s terrified, Taggart’s disappointed.” Ferris orders a medium shock leve
l. Taggart is enthralled, “…sitting on the edge of his [seat], leaning forward.” The shock ends and Ferris orders a higher level shock. Ferris asks Galt if he’s had enough and gets no response. Taggart yells, “You’re too easy on him!”
(1141) Laying on the table, Galt looks completely out of place. His body is like a Greek statue, although he has “…the body, not of a chariot driver, but of a builder of airplanes.” Ironically, Galt’s body seems at home with the wires, levers and componentry of the device whose purpose is his coercion. Taggart, Mouch and Ferris resist the thought that it is the absence of statues which glorify man which has brought their society to its current level of degradation.
(1142) Ferris now orders the shocks to be delivered at random intervals and at random strengths. “The machine was calculated to inflict the maximum intensity of pain without damaging the body of the victim.” However, the machine is now coming close to damaging Galt. Meanwhile, “Galt lay relaxed, as if
not attempting to fight the pain, but surrendering to it, not attempting to negate it, but to bear it.” Mouch is terrified by the spectacle and tells Ferris, “Don’t kill him!…If he dies, we die!” Ferris says that the machine won’t kill him, but Mouch wants him to stop because he’s sure that Galt will now “obey.” Ferris says, “No! It’s not enough! I don’t want him to obey! I want him to believe! To accept! To want to accept! We’ve got to have him work for us voluntarily!” Taggart wants Ferris to keep going even harder. He says, “Can’t you make the current stronger? He hasn’t even screamed yet!” Mouch is appalled and can see that Taggart is enjoying the torture. Ferris keeps asking Galt if he’s ready to give in, but Galt says nothing.
(1143) Suddenly, the sound of Galt’s heartbeat is no longer heard. The torturers are about to panic when Galt lifts his head. They all realize that something is wrong with the device. A technician tells them that the generator is broken, but that he doesn’t kno
w how to fix it. Ferris orders the technician to fix the machine and threatens him with jail if he does not. The technician weakly responds, “I don’t know what to do.” Just then, a voice says, “It’s the vibrator that’s out of order.” The voice is Galt’s, who proceeds to tell the technician exactly how to fix the machine. The technician is horrified and runs from the cellar. Galt breaks out in laughter.
(1144) Taggart flies into a rage. He says that he will fix the machine. The others suggest that T
aggart cool down and that they call it a day. Taggart refuses to relent and says, “He hasn’t had enough…I want to break him! I want to hear him scream! I want-” and then Taggart screams. Taggart sees the true nature of himself at the exact moment when he sees that he wants Galt to die. Taggart knows that the motive which has guided life was “…the lust to destroy whatever was living, for the sake of whatever was not. It was the urge to defy reality by the destruction of every living value, for the sake of proving to himself that he could exist in defiance of reality and would never have to be bound by any solid, immutable facts.” One moment earlier, Taggart had not seen this connection, but now “…he knew that he had never wanted to survive, he knew that
it was Galt’s greatness he had wanted to torture and destroy…In the person of Galt – he knew – he had sought the destruction of all existence.” The fog has been lifted and Taggart can now see his own “hatred of existence.”
(1146) He slumps to the ground. Ferris and Mouch pick him up, knowing that, whatever happened to Taggart, “…they must never attempt to discover it, under peril of sharing his fate.” They carry Taggart out of the cellar and tell the guard that they will be back.
Chapter X – In The Name Of The Best Within Us
P1147. Dagny walks up to the outside of the building housing Project F. She meets a guard and tells him to let her in under orders of Mr. Thompson. The guard says he needs written orders. Dagny
tells the guard that he must decide if he will obey her authority or risk the consequences. When he says he will call the authorities to verify her request, she pulls a gun on him and tells him he must decide what to do. He can’t decide what to do and so Dagny tells him that if he doesn’t decide by the count of three, she will shoot him. Dagny counts to three…and “…Calmly and impersonally, she, who would have hesitated to fire at an animal, pulled the trigger and fired straight at the heart of a man who had wanted t
[o exist without the responsibility of consciousness.” She is quickly joinned by Francisco, Rearden and Ragnar. All four guards around the outside of the buidling have now been immobilized.
(1149) Francisco walks in the front door and meets two guards. He unsuccessfully tries to talk his way into the structure. One of the guards draws his gun, but before he can shoot, Francisco shoots the gun out of the guard’s hand and trains his gun on the second guard. Francisco is quickly joined by Rearden. Entering the structure, they discover that there are nine more guards inside: one at the cellar door and eight upstairs. They also learn that Ferris has left just fifteen minutes earlier. Rearden walks upstairs and into the room where six guards are playing cards and two are carrying guns. The guards all instantly recognize Rearden and are awed
by his presence. Rearden does not carry a gun and the two guards with guns are pointing them at Rearden. Rearden tells the chief guard, “I am here to take charge of the prisoner whom you are to deliver to me.” The chief reaches for a phone to verify, but finds the line dead. Rearden and the chief argue over whether or not Rearden should be allowed to take the prisoner. The chief ultimately reaches for a gun and shoots Rearden in the shoulder. In the same instant, Francisco appears and shoot the chief in the hand, forcing his gun to the ground. The men recognize and are awed by Francisco. The chief yells to his men to kill Francisco and Rearden, but the guards are all frozen. Finally, one of the guards tries to run out the door, but he is met by Dagny and her gun. The guard retreats back to the middle of the room.
(1154) Rearden tells the guards, “Drop your guns…You don’t know the purpose of your fight. We know the purpose of ou
rs.” One of the guards drops his gun and raises his arm. The chief guard immediately reaches for a gun and shoots this man. As the man’s body hits the floor, Ragnar comes crashing through a glass window. Recognizing Ragnar’s identity, four of the remaining guards drop their guns and a fifth guard shoots the chief in the head.
(1154) With the upstairs guards immobilized, the four go downstairs to the cellar, where the guard gives up quickly. Francisco goes into the cellar first and, having seen that Galt is all right, allows Dagny to rush to Galt’s side. Galt says to Dagny, in echo of what she had said to him when she awoke in the valley (P701), “We never had to take any of it seriously, did we?” Dagny sheds tears of joy. Francisco vows to find and kill the men who have tortured Galt, but Galt says that if Francisco does find them, he will “…find that there’s nothing left
of them to kill.” When Galt has regained his strength, Ragnar demolishes Project F and they all walk out of the building towards their waiting airplane.
(1156) As the plane takes off, Galt kisses Dagny’s hand, happy because “…he was leaving the outer world with the one value he had wanted from it.” Galt thanks Rearden, but Rearden says that he acted for his own sake and that no thanks are necessary. Rearden looks at Dagny and Hank together and then back at Dagny, giving her a glance which tells her that he understands and is happy about their relationship. Ragnar radios the other airplanes in their group to tell them that everyhing is all right. Half of the male population of the valley had flown to the area surrounding New York and had been ready to make a full-s
cale assault if the efforts of the four rescuers had failed. Ragnar says, “One of these centuries, the brutes, private or public, who believe that they can rule their betters by force, will learn the lesson of what happens when brute force encounters mind and force.”
(1158) They fly over rural countryside where the lights have been extinguished because of the economy. They fly over New York and through its lights, they witness the rush of cars trying to get out. All of a sudden, the lights of New York go out. Dagny remembers the story Francisco had once told her, that Galt had “…said that we had to extinguish the light of the world, and when we would see the light of New York go out, we would know that our job was done.” Dagny knows that “…at this hour, thei
r plane was carrying all that was left of New York City.” She feels pride and opportunity, as Nat Taggart had once felt, “…the confident sense of facing a void and of knowing that one has a continent to build.” She thinks of her past struggle. Her feeling is summed up in the words, “Price no object.” {I don’t understand. Does it mean that, even though she lives in a capitalist system and lives and dies by specific values, the things which she truly values in life do not have a price?}
(1159) Dagny and Galt gaze at each other. “Their persons filled each other’s awareness, as the sum and meaning of the future – but the sum included the knowledge of all that had had to be earned, before the person of another being could come to embody the value o
~f one
s existence.
P1160. Eddie Willers is riding the Eastbound Comet somewhere in Arizona when it breaks down. Eddie had gone to San Francisco and, after considerable effort, he had worked out deals with the warring factions which allowed the Comet to leave the station. “He had never had to work so hard; he had done his job as conscientiously well as he had always done any assignment; but it was as if he had worked in a vacuum…” {Eddie was and is now putting his energies into a lost cause.}
(1161) Eddie tells the conductor to find a track phone, call Division Headquarters and have them send a mechanic. He feels a tremendous sense of urgency to get the train moving and off the track of Atlantic Southern, where it now lies. Once it gets on Taggart track, which starts at the Taggart Bridge, he thinks that everything will be all right. The conductor comes back to tell Eddie
A that no one answered at Division Headquarters. Even though it is a longshot, Eddie tells the conductor to see if an electrical engineer happens to be on the train. Eddie goes to the engine to personally fix the problem. They start working on the problem, but the engineer can see it’s hopeless and says to Eddie, “What’s the use, Mr. Willers?” Eddie replies, “We can’t let it go!” Eddie is talking about much more than the train or the railroad. He is hanging on to his concept of productivity and purpose. Blindly obedient, Eddie continues to be a slave, ignorant that he is being used, unable to take things less seriously (see P701, P1154).
(1163) Suddenly they see a light moving slowly across the prairie towards them. They can see bulky shapes moving and, out of the darkness, a horse-drawn wagon train emerges. A ma
n “like a side-show barker” ridicules the Comet and its inability to function. The barker gives Eddie news that the Taggart Bridge and New York are no longer in existence. The barker offers transportation on the wagon train to anyone on the Comet who wants to join him. The passengers and crew quickly leave the Comet and board his wagons.
(1166) Eddie refuses to leave the train. “He felt like the captain of an ocean liner in distress, who preferred to go down with his ship rather than be saved by the canoe of savages taunting him with the superiority of their craft.” As the wagon train leaves, he goes into a rage of “righteous defiance,” wildly pulling levers and pushing buttons. He refuses to let anything go. He thinks of Dagny: “…in the name of the b
est within us, I must now start this train!…Dagny, that is what it was..and you knew it, then, but I didn’t…you knew it when you turned to look at the rails…I said, ‘not business or earning a living’…but, Dagny, business and earning a living and that in man which makes it possible – that is the best within us, that was the thing to defend…in the name of saving it, Dagny, I must now start this train…” He gets down from the cab, walks in front of the headlight of the train and collapses on the ground, “…sobbing at the foot of the engine…”
P1167. It is a winter evening in Galt’s Gulch. Richard Halley is at home playing his Fifth Concerto. Midas Mulligan is at home planning where to invest money. Kay Ludlow and Ragnar are at their home. She is studying film make up; he is reading from Aristotle. Judge Naragansett is home re-writing the Constitution, adding the clause, “Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of production and trade…” Francisco, Rearden and Ellis Wyatt are at Francisco’s cabin, planning the industrial rebirth of the nation. Dagny and Galt are walking somewhere in the mountains. Galt looks over the darkness, past Wyatt’s Torch and traces the sign of the dollar in space. He says, “The road is cleared. We are going back to the world.”
The End
